Author: TheConversation

By Trevon Logan, Hazel C. Youngberg Distinguished Professor of Economics, The Ohio State University Most people recognize that there are first names given almost exclusively by black Americans to their children, such as Jamal and Latasha. While fodder for comedians and social commentary, many have assumed that these distinctively black names are a modern phenomenon. My research shows that’s not true. Long before there was Jamal and Latasha, there was Booker and Perlie. The names have changed, but my colleagues and I traced the use of distinctive black names to the earliest history of the United States. As scholars...

By Rheeda Walker, Professor of Psychology, University of Houston Teen suicide rates among black youth are increasing. In 2016 and again in 2018, national data revealed that among children age 5-11, black children had the highest rate of death by suicide. For the years 2008 to 2012, 59 black youth died by suicide, up from 54 in the years 2003-2007. Also, the 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported that, compared to non-Hispanic white boys, black high-school age boys are more likely to have made serious suicide attempts that require medical attention. I...

By Sarah Stitzlein, Professor of Education and Affiliate Faculty in Philosophy, University of Cincinnati Elections often inspire hope, but that hope can quickly turn to political despair when candidates fall short of voters’ expectations. As a philosopher who specializes in citizenship education and political theory, I believe that political hope can be taught in schools and colleges. As I argue in my new open-access book, hope can lay a pathway to help citizens make good choices at the ballot box and sustain political engagement well after the polls close. Despair in democracy A recent study published in the Journal...

By Danielle K. Kilgo, Assistant Professor, Indiana University The new decade is just days old, but in one respect it is already shaping up like the last one: with mass protests around the world. Rallies for democracy overseas and anti-war demonstrations in the U.S. come on the back of a year that saw people take to the streets over issues including human rights abuse, corruption and climate change. Yet, despite the popularity of movements like the global climate strike and the massive women’s marches around the globe, most people don’t actually attend these events. The general public’s opinions about...

By Nadia Naffi, Assistant Professor, Educational Technology, Holds the Chair in Educational Leadership in the Sustainable Transformation of Pedagogical Practices in Digital Contexts, Université Laval More than a decade ago, Internet analyst and new media scholar Clay Shirky said: “The only real way to end spam is to shut down e-mail communication.” Will shutting down the Internet be the only way to end deepfake propaganda in 2020? Today, anyone can create their own fake news and also break it. Online propaganda is more misleading and manipulative than ever. Deepfakes, a specific form of disinformation that uses machine-learning algorithms to...

By Adrian Bardon, Professor of Philosophy, Wake Forest University Something is rotten in the state of American political life. The U.S. (among other nations) is increasingly characterized by highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own factual universes. Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines, fluoridated water and genetically modified foods are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets paint a detailed picture of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy. None of that is...