title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: In a 1986 book, Ed Reed claimed that two bullets, not one, were found in Long's body. He relied on testimony from Long's mortician, who claimed that a doctor returned late at night to remove an additional bullet from Long's corpse. This was not the only discrepancy. Weiss’ brother, Tom Ed Weiss, who arrived at the scene an hour after the shooting, claimed that Weiss' car had been moved from where witnesses had seen it at the door of the Capitol and that his brother's gun had been removed from the glove compartment. Additionally, the coroner did not find car keys in Weiss's pockets.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: Weiss' son, Carl Weiss Jr., believed his father to be innocent: "I don't believe that he fired a fatal shot or indeed that he carried a gun into the state Capitol that night." In a 1985 conversation with Long's son Russell, Weiss learned of the existence of his father's gun. With James Starrs of George Washington University, Weiss located the gun in a New Orleans safe-deposit box owned by Mabel Guerre Binnings, the daughter of Louis Guerre, the state's head of crime investigations in 1935. After a legal battle, she gave up possession of the box in 1991. It contained Weiss' .32 caliber automatic pistol, a .32 caliber bullet that had been fired and had a blunt tip from an impact, and photos of Long's clothing showing a single bullet hole. After firing a test bullet, State Police investigators concluded that the bullet was not fired by Weiss' gun. However, it could not have been from one of the bodyguards as they carried a larger caliber.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: As Weiss was never given an autopsy, his body was exhumed in 1991. His remains were examined at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History. Although nearly all soft-tissue had decomposed, pathologists were able to study his damaged bones. They concluded that at least 24 bullets struck Weiss, though eyewitness accounts suggested that there had been at least 60. It was likely that a number of bullets had passed through soft-tissue, missing Weiss' bones. They were also able to determine the angle of impact of each bullet: Weiss was shot from the front seven times, thrice from the right, twice from the left, and twelve times from behind. This indicates that Weiss was killed in an erratic crossfire. A .38 caliber slug was found in Weiss' skull, having entered below his left eye. According to ballistics expert Lucien C. Haag, a bullet of this size should have had enough energy to exit the skull. He claimed that this lack of force was indicative of it passing through another body. It is believed that this bullet passed through Weiss' arm: suit fiber was attached to the bullet and there was damage to bones in Weiss' arms. Starrs claims that this suggests that Weiss was in a "defensive posture", with arms raised before him.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: After the assassination, the MONY Life Insurance Co. dispatched company investigator K. B. Ponder to validate the nature of Long's death. His 1935 report concluded:


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: There is no doubt that Weiss attacked Long, but there is considerable doubt that Weiss ever fired a gun. ... There is no doubt that his death was accidental, but the consensus of more informed opinion is that he was killed by his own guard and not by Weiss.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: In determining that Long's death was accidental, MONY paid a $20,000 life insurance claim to Long's widow. This information was only publicly released in 1985, fifty years after Long's death.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: Louisiana State University professor T. Harry Williams wrote of this theory in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1969 biography of Long, dismissing the theory:


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: Long's body, dressed in a tuxedo, lay in an open double casket (of bronze with a glass lid) in the State Capitol rotunda. Some 200,000 people entered Baton Rouge for his funeral. Tens of thousands saw the funeral in front of the Capitol on September 12; presiding was Gerald L. K. Smith, co-founder of Share Our Wealth and subsequently of the America First Party. Long was buried on the grounds of the Capitol, and a statue at his grave depicts his achievements. Within the Capitol, a plaque marks the site of the assassination.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: On September 16, 1935, an inquest was held by the state authorities. Only fervent Longites were allowed to testify, including a judge who hadn't even witnessed the shooting. No ballistic or medical evidence was examined. Long's allies in the Democratic Party quickly took advantage of the situation. Insinuating that the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy, they labelled their opponents the "Assassination Party". They published a fifty-page propaganda pamphlet: "Why Huey Long Was Killed!!" However, a federal probe found no evidence of a political conspiracy. In the following gubernatorial election, pro-Long campaigners carried containers of faux blood, declaring, "Here it is, like the blood Huey Long shed for you, the blood that stained the floor as it poured from his body. Are you going to vote for those who planned this deed and carried it into execution." Their chosen candidate, Oscar K. Allen, was elected in a landslide.


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt administration, which would go on to win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Democratic National Committee Chairman James Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell would later write: "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also wrote that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".


title: Assassination of Huey Long

text: Long's assassination turned him into a near legendary figure in some parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. A 1940 Gallup poll found that 55% of Lousianians viewed Long as a positive influence, while just 22% viewed him negatively.


title: Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry)

text: In physics and chemistry, a degree of freedom is an independent physical parameter in the formal description of the state of a physical system. The set of all states of a system is known as the system's phase space, and the degrees of freedom of the system are the dimensions of the phase space.


text: The location of a particle in three-dimensional space requires three position coordinates. Similarly, the direction and speed at which a particle moves can be described in terms of three velocity components, each in reference to the three dimensions of space. If the time evolution of the system is deterministic (where the state at one instant uniquely determines its past and future position and velocity as a function of time) such a system has six degrees of freedom. If the motion of the particle is constrained to a lower number of dimensions – for example, the particle must move along a wire or on a fixed surface – then the system has fewer than six degrees of freedom. On the other hand, a system with an extended object that can rotate or vibrate can have more than six degrees of freedom.


text: In classical mechanics, the state of a point particle at any given time is often described with position and velocity coordinates in the Lagrangian formalism, or with position and momentum coordinates in the Hamiltonian formalism.


text: In statistical mechanics, a degree of freedom is a single scalar number describing the microstate of a system. The specification of all microstates of a system is a point in the system's phase space.


text: In the 3D ideal chain model in chemistry, two angles are necessary to describe the orientation of each monomer.


text: It is often useful to specify quadratic degrees of freedom. These are degrees of freedom that contribute in a quadratic function to the energy of the system.


text: Depending on what one is counting, there are several different ways that degrees of freedom can be defined,


text: By the equipartition theorem, internal energy per mole of gas equals , where is absolute temperature and the specific heat at constant volume is c = (f)(R/2).


text: R = 8.314 J/(K mol) is the universal gas constant, and "f" is the number of thermodynamic (quadratic) degrees of freedom,


text: Any atom or molecule has three degrees of freedom associated with translational motion (kinetic energy) of the center of mass with respect to the x, y, and z axes. These are the only degrees of freedom for a monoatomic species, such as noble gas atoms.


text: For a structure consisting of two or more atoms, the whole structure also has rotational kinetic energy, where the whole structure turns about an axis.


text: has two rotational degrees of freedom, because it can rotate about either of two axes perpendicular to the molecular axis.


text: A nonlinear molecule, where the atoms do not lie along a single axis, like water (HO), has three rotational degrees of freedom, because it can rotate around any of three perpendicular axes.


text: In special cases, such as adsorbed large molecules, the rotational degrees of freedom can be limited to only one.


text: A structure consisting of two or more atoms also has vibrational energy, where the individual atoms move with respect to one another. A diatomic molecule has one molecular vibration mode: the two atoms oscillate back and forth with the chemical bond between them acting as a spring. A molecule with atoms has more complicated modes of molecular vibration, with vibrational modes for a linear molecule and modes for a nonlinear molecule.


text: As specific examples, the linear CO molecule has 4 modes of oscillation, and the nonlinear water molecule has 3 modes of oscillation


text: Each vibrational mode has two energy terms: the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and the potential energy of the spring-like chemical bond(s).


text: Therefore, the number of vibrational energy terms for a linear molecule and modes for a nonlinear molecule.


text: Both the rotational and vibrational modes are quantized, requiring a minimum temperature to be activated. The "rotational temperature" to activate the rotational degrees of freedom is less than 100 K for many gases. For N and O, it is less than 3 K.


text: The "vibrational temperature" necessary for substantial vibration is between 10 K and 10 K, 3521 K for N and 2156 K for O. Typical atmospheric temperatures are not high enough to activate vibration in N and O, which comprise most of the atmosphere. (See the next figure.) However, the much less abundant greenhouse gases keep the troposphere warm by absorbing infrared from the Earth's surface, which excites their vibrational modes.


text: Much of this energy is reradiated back to the surface in the infrared through the "greenhouse effect."


text: Because room temperature (≈298 K) is over the typical rotational temperature but lower than the typical vibrational temperature, only the translational and rotational degrees of freedom contribute, in equal amounts, to the heat capacity ratio. This is why ≈ for monatomic gases and ≈ for diatomic gases at room temperature.


text: Since the air is dominated by diatomic gases (with nitrogen and oxygen contributing about 99%), its molar internal energy is close to = (5/2), determined by the 5 degrees of freedom exhibited by diatomic gases.


text: Only at temperatures well above temperatures in the troposphere and stratosphere do some molecules have enough energy to activate the vibrational modes of N and O. The specific heat at constant volume, c, increases slowly toward (7/2) as temperature increases above T = 400 K, where c is 1.3% above (5/2) = 717.5 J/(K kg).


text: One can also count degrees of freedom using the minimum number of coordinates required to specify a position. This is done as follows:


text: Let's say one particle in this body has coordinate and the other has coordinate with unknown. Application of the formula for distance between two coordinates


text: Contrary to the classical equipartition theorem, at room temperature, the vibrational motion of molecules typically makes negligible contributions to the heat capacity. This is because these degrees of freedom are "frozen" because the spacing between the energy eigenvalues exceeds the energy corresponding to ambient temperatures ().


text: The set of degrees of freedom of a system is independent if the energy associated with the set can be written in the following form:


text: For from 1 to , the value of the th degree of freedom is distributed according to the Boltzmann distribution. Its probability density function is the following:


text: In this section, and throughout the article the brackets formula_6 denote the mean of the quantity they enclose.


text: The internal energy of the system is the sum of the average energies associated with each of the degrees of freedom:


text: A degree of freedom is quadratic if the energy terms associated with this degree of freedom can be written as


text: For example, in Newtonian mechanics, the dynamics of a system of quadratic degrees of freedom are controlled by a set of homogeneous linear differential equations with constant coefficients.


text: are quadratic and independent degrees of freedom if the energy associated with a microstate of the system they represent can be written as:


text: In the classical limit of statistical mechanics, at thermodynamic equilibrium, the internal energy of a system of quadratic and independent degrees of freedom is:


text: Since the degrees of freedom are independent, the internal energy of the system is equal to the sum of the mean energy associated with each degree of freedom, which demonstrates the result.


text: The description of a system's state as a point in its phase space, although mathematically convenient, is thought to be fundamentally inaccurate. In quantum mechanics, the motion degrees of freedom are superseded with the concept of wave function, and operators which correspond to other degrees of freedom have discrete spectra. For example, intrinsic angular momentum operator (which corresponds to the rotational freedom) for an electron or photon has only two eigenvalues. This discreteness becomes apparent when action has an order of magnitude of the Planck constant, and individual degrees of freedom can be distinguished.


title: Aporia

text: In philosophy, an aporia () is a conundrum or state of puzzlement. In rhetoric, it is a declaration of doubt, made for rhetorical purpose and often feigned.


title: Aporia

text: Definitions of the term "aporia" have varied throughout history. "The Oxford English Dictionary" includes two forms of the word: the adjective "aporetic", which it defines as "impassable", and "inclined to doubt, or to raise objections"; and the noun form "aporia", which it defines as the "state of the aporetic" and "a perplexity or difficulty". The dictionary entry also includes two early textual uses, which both refer to the term's rhetorical (rather than philosophical) usage.


title: Aporia

text: In George Puttenham's "The Arte of English Poesie" (1589), aporia is "the Doubtful, [so] called...because often we will seem to caste perils, and make doubts of things when by a plaine manner of speech we might affirm or deny [them]". In a reference from 1657, J. Smith's "Mystical Rhetoric," the term becomes "a figure whereby the speaker sheweth that he doubteth, either where to begin for the multitude of matters, or what to do or say in some strange or ambiguous thing" (OED). Herbert Weir Smyth's "Greek Grammar" (1956) also focuses on the rhetorical usage by defining aporia as "an artifice by which a speaker feigns doubts as to where he shall begin or end or what he shall do or say" (674).


title: Aporia

text: More modern sources, perhaps because they come after the advent of post-structuralism, have chosen to omit the rhetorical usage of the term. In William Harmon's "A Handbook to Literature," for example, aporia is identified as "a difficulty, impasse, or point of doubt and indecision", while also noting that critics such as Jacques Derrida have employed the term to "indicate a point of undecidability, which locates the site at which the text most obviously undermines its own rhetorical structure, dismantles, or deconstructs itself" (39). Julian Wolfreys, in his essay "Trauma, Testimony, and Criticism", characterizes trauma as aporia, a wound with unending trail. Valiur Rahaman, in his book "Interpretations: Essays in Literary Theory " (2011), explained aporia as a creative force in both the artist and their art; it is, for the artist, an edgeless edge of the text or a work of art.


title: Aporia

text: The separation of aporia into its two morphemes "a"- and "poros" ('without' and 'passage') reveals the word's rich etymological background as well as its connection to Platonic mythology. Sarah Kofman asserts that these two components are crucial to a fuller understanding of the word, which has been historically translated and understood somewhat reductively: "translators, who usually escape their perplexity by translating "poros" as 'expediency' and "aporia" as 'difficulty' [...] leave the reader in the dark as to all the semantic richness of "poros" and "aporia" and give no hint as to their links with other words belonging to the same 'family (9). Such links inevitably demonstrate that the terms are part of a "tradition" that Plato borrows from, a tradition which "breaks with a philosophical conception of translation, and with the logic of identity that it implies" (10). To demonstrate such a break, Kofman reviews multiple instances of the term throughout Plato's work. Her discussion of the myth of Poros, Penia, and Eros in Plato's "Symposium" especially reveals the concept's untranslatability. Penia, the "child of poverty", decides to forcefully impregnate herself with the inebriated Poros, the personification of plenty, who is always in opposition with aporia and thus defining aporia. The result of this union is Eros, who inherits the disparate characteristics of his parents (25). The perplexing aspect of the myth is revealed as one realizes that Penia is acting out of resourcefulness, a quality normally attributed to Poros, and Poros' inaction reveals his own passivity, a poverty of agency or "poros". Such a relationship intensely affects not only the context of aporia but its meaning as well:


title: Aporia

text: Ultimately, aporia cannot be separated from this etymological and cultural history. Such history provides insight into aporia's perplexing semantic qualities as well as into the historical context in which the word functions as an indicator of the limits of language in constructing knowledge.


title: Aporia

text: In philosophy, an aporia is a philosophical puzzle or a seemingly insoluble impasse in an inquiry, often arising as a result of equally plausible yet inconsistent premises (i.e. a paradox). It can also denote the state of being perplexed, or at a loss, at such a puzzle or impasse. The notion of an aporia is principally found in Greek philosophy, but it also plays a role in post-structuralist philosophy, as in the writings of Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray, and it has also served as an instrument of investigation in analytic philosophy.


title: Aporia

text: Plato's early dialogues are often called his 'aporetic' (Greek: ἀπορητικός) dialogues because they typically end in aporia. In such a dialogue, Socrates questions his interlocutor about the nature or definition of a concept, for example virtue or courage. Socrates then, through elenctic testing, shows his interlocutor that his answer is unsatisfactory. After a number of such failed attempts, the interlocutor admits he is in aporia about the examined concept, concluding that he does not know what it is. In Plato's "Meno" (84a-c), Socrates describes the purgative effect of reducing someone to aporia: it shows someone who merely thought he knew something that he does not in fact know it and instills in him a desire to investigate it.


title: Aporia

text: In Aristotle's "Metaphysics", aporia plays a role in his method of inquiry. In contrast to a rationalist inquiry that begins from "a priori" principles, or an empiricist inquiry that begins from a "tabula rasa", he begins the "Metaphysics" by surveying the various "aporiai" that exist, drawing in particular on what puzzled his predecessors: "with a view to the science we are seeking [i.e., metaphysics], it is necessary that we should first review the things about which we need, from the outset, to be puzzled" (995a24). Book Beta of the "Metaphysics" is a list of the "aporiai" that preoccupy the rest of the work.


title: Aporia

text: Contemporary academic studies of the term further characterize its usage in philosophical discourses. In "Aporetics: Rational Deliberation in the Face of Inconsistency" (2009), Nicholas Rescher is concerned with the methods in which an aporia, or "apory", is intellectually processed and resolved. In the Preface, Rescher identifies the work as an attempt to "synthesize and systematize an aporetic procedure for dealing with information overload (of 'cognitive dissonance', as it is sometimes called)" (ix). The text is also useful in that it provides a more precise (although specialized) definition of the concept: "any cognitive situation in which the threat of inconsistency confronts us" (1). Rescher further introduces his specific study of the apory by qualifying the term as "a group of individually plausible but collectively incompatible theses", a designation he illustrates with the following syllogism or "cluster of contentions":


title: Aporia

text: The aporia, or "apory" of this syllogism lies in the fact that, while each of these assertions is individually conceivable, together they are inconsistent or impossible (i.e. they constitute a paradox). Rescher's study is indicative of the continuing presence of scholarly examinations of the concept of aporia and, furthermore, of the continuing attempts of scholars to translate the word, to describe its modern meaning.


title: Aporia

text: Aporia is also a rhetorical device whereby the speaker expresses a doubt—often feigned—about his position or asks the audience rhetorically how he or she should proceed. One aim of aporia may be to discredit the speaker's opponent. Aporia is also called "dubitatio". For example:


title: American Community Survey

text: The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educational attainment, income, language proficiency, migration, disability, employment, and housing characteristics. These data are used by many public-sector, private-sector, and not-for-profit stakeholders to allocate funding, track shifting demographics, plan for emergencies, and learn about local communities. Sent to approximately 295,000 addresses monthly (or 3.5 million per year), it is the largest household survey that the Census Bureau administers.


title: American Community Survey

text: The American Community Survey gathers information annually in the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico — however it does not gather information in four major U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands).


title: American Community Survey

text: The United States Constitution (Article I, Section II) requires an enumeration of the population every ten years "in such Manner as they [Congress] shall by Law direct". From the first census in 1790, legislators understood that it should collect basic demographic information beyond the number of people in the household. James Madison first proposed including questions in the census to "enable them to adapt the public measures to the particular circumstances of the community". Such knowledge collected with each census, he said, "would give them an opportunity of marking the progress of the society". The questions included in censuses since 1790 have reflected American understandings of and concerns about societal trends and the growing nation's expanded data needs.


title: American Community Survey

text: By 1940, advancements in statistical methods enabled the Census Bureau to start asking a sample of the population a subset of additional detailed questions without unduly increasing cost or respondent burden. In subsequent decades, questions that had previously been asked of all respondents, as well as new questions, moved to the sample questionnaire form. As that form grew longer than the census form sent to most households, it became known as the census "long form".


title: American Community Survey

text: Following the 1960 Census, federal, state and local government officials, as well as those working in the private sector, began demanding more timely long-form-type data. Lawmakers representing rural districts claimed they were at a data disadvantage, unable to self-fund additional surveys of their populations. Congress explored the creation of a mid-decade census, holding hearings and even authorizing a mid-decade census in 1976, but not funding it.


title: American Community Survey

text: Efforts to obtain data on a more frequent basis began again after the 1990 Census, when it became clear that the more burdensome long form was depressing overall census response rates and jeopardizing the accuracy of the count. At Congress's request, the Census Bureau developed and tested a new design to obtain long-form data. U.S. statistician Leslie Kish had introduced the concept of a rolling sample (or continuous measurement) design in 1981. This design featured ongoing, monthly data collection aggregated on a yearly basis, enabling annual data releases. By combining multiple years of this data, the Census Bureau could release "period" estimates to produce estimates for smaller areas. After a decade of testing, it launched as the American Community Survey in 2005, replacing the once-a-decade census long form.


title: American Community Survey

text: The ACS has an initial sample of approximately 3.5 million housing unit addresses and group quarters in the United States. The Census Bureau selects a random sample of addresses to be included in the ACS. Each address has about a 1-in-480 chance of being selected in a given month, and no address should be selected more than once every five years. Data is collected by internet, mail, telephone interviews and in-person interviews. Approximately one third of those who do not respond to the survey by mail or telephone are randomly selected for in-person interviews. About 95 percent of households across all response modes ultimately respond.


title: American Community Survey

text: Like the decennial census, ACS responses are confidential. Every employee at the Census Bureau takes an oath of nondisclosure and is sworn for life to not disclose identifying information. Violations can result in a 5-year prison sentence and/or $250,000 fine. Under , census responses are "immune from legal process" and may not "be admitted as evidence or used for any purpose in any action, suit, or other judicial or administrative proceeding".


title: American Community Survey

text: The Census Bureau aggregates individual ACS responses (i.e. microdata) into estimates at many . Among these summary levels are legal and administrative entities such as states, counties, cities, and congressional districts, as well as statistical entities such as metropolitan statistical areas, tracts, block groups, and census designated places. Estimates for census blocks are not available from ACS. Puerto Rico is the only U.S. territory that is part of the ACS program.


title: American Community Survey

text: In order to balance geographic resolution, temporal frequency, statistical significance, and respondent privacy, ACS estimates released each year are aggregated from responses received in the previous calendar year or previous five calendar years. The Census Bureau provides guidance for data users about which data set to use when analyzing different population and geography sizes.


title: American Community Survey

text: From 2007 to 2013, 3-year estimates were available for areas with 20,000 people or more. This data product was discontinued in 2015 due to budget cuts. The last 3-year release was the 2011-2013 ACS 3-year estimates.


title: American Community Survey

text: Within the last 10 years, the American Community Survey has collected and supplied all data at local levels. This was a large breakthrough in the survey because it allows the American people more individualized data on a community level as opposed to extrapolating from data collected over a larger area. It has also provided unparalleled information to be more accessible for local government planning and financing. The increase in data availability on a smaller scale is a necessary and welcome addition to the ACS. While the addition is welcome, it does not always accurately reflect a smaller population. Many conclusions for local data is averaged from various information across the area, and while useful, it is not always an adequate representation.


title: American Community Survey

text: ACS estimates are available via a number of online data tools. U.S. Census website (AFF) is the primary tool for disseminating ACS data, allowing users to drill down to specific tables and geographies (starting with 2013 estimates, AFF also includes block group data). A selection of the most popular tables is shown in QuickFacts. Other tools include OnTheMap for Emergency Management, Census Business Builder and My Congressional District. My Tribal Area featuring 5-year estimates for federally recognized tribes, launched in 2017. The Summary File is the most detailed data source, and is available as a series of downloadable text files or through an application programming interface (API) for software developers.


title: American Community Survey

text: Custom cross-tabulations of ACS questions can be made using the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), freely accessible through the Census Bureau website and Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. PUMS data contain responses to every question from a sample of respondents. To protect respondent privacy, PUMS data are anonymized and only available down to areas containing 100,000 people or more known as Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs). The analysis of all ACS microdata without the sampling and anonymization in PUMS is restricted to qualified researchers at secure Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDCs).


title: American Community Survey

text: American Community Survey data provides important information that cannot be found elsewhere. The federal government, as well as various businesses, researchers, and local governments use ACS data for planning and decision-making purposes. ACS data are used by public and business decision-makers to more clearly identify issues and opportunities and more effectively allocate scarce resources to address them. In Fiscal Year 2008, 184 federal domestic assistance programs used ACS-related datasets to help guide the distribution of $416 billion, 29 percent of all federal assistance.


title: American Community Survey

text: The American Community Survey is authorized by 13 U.S.C. § 141 and 13 U.S.C. § 193. Federal courts have held that the long form is constitutional.


title: American Community Survey

text: In 2000, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that the 2000 Census and the 2000 Census questions did not violate the Fourth Amendment or other constitutional provisions as alleged by plaintiffs. The court said responses to census questions are not a violation of a citizen's right to privacy or speech.


title: American Community Survey

text: The court's decision was later affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied petition for writ of certiorari. Additionally, a number of other courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have consistently held through the years that the census and the questions in the census are authorized by both the Constitution and statute.


title: American Community Survey

text: In 2002, the GAO confirmed that the Census Bureau has authority to conduct the survey and "require responses from the public".


title: American Community Survey

text: All individual American Community Survey responses are kept private and are used (along with other ACS responses) to create estimates of demographic characteristics for various geographies. Because of data swapping techniques to ensure confidentiality, it is impossible to figure out how individual people responded based on data from published ACS estimates.


title: American Community Survey

text: Opponents of the American Community Survey disagree with the court's findings about its constitutionality. They believe the survey asks for more information, and at a higher frequency, than the simple enumeration required by Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Despite the Government Accountability Office's conclusion that the Census Bureau has the authority to conduct the survey under and , several U.S. representatives have challenged the ACS as unauthorized by the Census Act and a violation of the Right to Financial Privacy Act. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who opposes the ACS, said of it that the founding fathers of the United States "never authorized the federal government to continuously survey the American people".


title: American Community Survey

text: Those who decline to complete the survey may receive visits to their homes from Census Bureau personnel. Because it is a mandatory survey, it is governed by federal laws that could impose a fine of as much as $5,000 for refusing to participate.


title: American Community Survey

text: To date, no person has been prosecuted for refusing to answer the ACS. Former Director of the Census Bureau Kenneth Prewitt remarked that the Department of Commerce is "not an enforcement agency" and that "the Department of Justice would have to do the prosecution, and we don't recommend that". The Census Bureau prefers to gain cooperation by convincing respondents of the importance of participation, while acknowledging that the mandate improves response rates (and thus accuracy) and lowers the annual cost of survey administration by more than $90 million.


title: American Community Survey

text: In 2014, the Census Project, a collaboration of pro-Census business and industry associations, gathered signatures from 96 national and local organizations urging the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to reject a proposal to make the American Community Survey voluntary. Signers included the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors and the US Conference of Mayors. The letter cited results from a congressionally mandated test of a voluntary ACS that found that mail response rates would drop "dramatically," by more than 20 percentage points. The resulting loss in quality and reliability would essentially eliminate data for 41 percent of U.S. counties, small cities, towns and villages, many school districts, neighborhoods, remote areas, and American Indian reservations.


title: American Community Survey

text: Because four major U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands) are not included in the American Community Survey, it means not every part of the U.S. has recent data.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Afro-Argentines are people in Argentina of primarily Sub-Saharan African descent. The Afro-Argentine population is the result of people being brought over during the transatlantic slave trade during the centuries of Spanish domination in the region and immigration from Africa.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: During the 18th and 19th centuries they accounted for up to fifty percent of the population in certain cities, and had a deep impact on Argentine culture. Some old theories held it that in the 19th century the Afro-Argentine population declined sharply due to several factors, such as the Argentine War of Independence (c. 1810–1818), high infant mortality rates, low numbers of married couples who were both Afro-Argentine, the War of the Triple Alliance, cholera epidemics in 1861 and 1864 and a yellow fever epidemic in 1871.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Research in recent decades cites a strong racial intermixing with whites and amerindians in the 18th and 19th centuries as the main reason for the decline of the black population in Argentina. That mixing was promoted by governments of those times as a method to, in a first era, make non-whites (amerindians and blacks) racially closer to whites to construct what was seen by the elite as a modern society; and in a second era, make them decline gradually through their "dilution" into a white majority that it was to become as such with the promotion of a mass immigration from Europe and Middle East that started to arrive since then (mid-19th century) until the 1940s. At the same time, non-whites frequently sought to have offspring with whites as a way to make their racially mixed child escape from slavery in the colonial period, and later, from discrimination.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: As part of the process of conquest, the economic regimes of the European colonies in the Americas developed various forms of forced labor exploitation of the indigenous peoples. However, the relatively low population density of some of the South American territories, resistance by some aboriginal groups to acculturation, and especially the high rate of mortality caused by the diseases introduced by Europeans caused the decline of the native population. Studies have shown that owing to their immunological isolation from the peoples of the Old World prior to the first contacts with Europeans from 1492 onwards, some 50-90% of the indigenous population throughout the Americas died from epidemic diseases, exacerbated by the stresses brought on by violent conquest, dispossession and exploitation. This led the Spaniards to supplement aboriginal manpower with slaves from West and Central Africa.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Well into the 19th century, mining and agriculture accounted for the bulk of economic activity in the Americas. African slave labor held the advantage of having already been exposed to European diseases through geographical proximity, and African laborers readily adapted to the tropical climate of the colonies. In the case of Argentina, the influx of African slaves began in the colonies of the Rio de la Plata in 1588. European slave traders purchased African slaves, who were then shipped from West Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas and the Caribbean. The slave trade flourished through the port of Buenos Aires, where thousands of African slaves arrived to be sold. To provide slaves to the East Indies, the Spanish crown granted contracts known as "Asientos" to various slave trading companies, both from Spain and other European nations.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Before the 16th century slaves had arrived in relatively small numbers from the Cape Verde islands. Thereafter the majority of Africans brought to Argentina were from ethnic groups speaking Bantu languages, from the territories now comprising Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Relatively few Yoruba and Ewe were taken to Argentina; larger numbers of these groups were taken to Brazil.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: It is estimated that 12 million African slaves reached Latin America, with many transported via slave ships to other regions through Valparaíso and Rio de Janeiro. An estimated 10-15% of slaves died during passage across the Atlantic. However, many more died during the process of enslavement, travel through the interior of Africa, and while awaiting shipment, with an estimated 40 deaths for every 100 slaves who reached the New World.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: The slaves were forced to work in agriculture, livestock, domestic work and to a lesser extent crafts. In urban areas, many slaves made handicrafts for sale, while revenues went to their masters. The Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo and Monserrat housed a large quantity of slaves, although most were sent to the interior provinces. The 1778 census conducted by Juan José Salcedo of Vértiz showed very high concentration of blacks (though largely the product of varying degrees of racial mixing with whites and amerindians) in cities located in regions where agricultural production was greatest: 54% in Santiago del Estero, 52% in San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, 46% in Salta, 44% in Córdoba, 44% in San Miguel de Tucumán, 24% in Mendoza, 20% in La Rioja, 16% in San Juan, 13% in San Salvador de Jujuy and 9% in San Luis, although there were some more in other cities and towns that were small percentages there. For example, one of the currently rich neighbourhoods of the city of Corrientes is still known as "Camba Cuá", from the Guarani "kamba kua", meaning "cave of the blacks".


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In 1801 the first Afro-Argentine militias were organised, under the auspices of the Compañía de Granaderos de Pardos libres de Buenos Aires and Compañía de Granaderos de Morenos libres de Buenos Aires. The pardos were free people of mixed European, African, and Native American, particularly Guaraní, descent, whereas the "morenos" seem to have been composed of soldiers of largely African ancestry. These forces were unified into the Batallón de Pardos y Morenos, also known as the "Batallón Castas", at a strength of 9 companies, plus 4 auxiliary slave companies, at the time of the first British invasion of the River Plate. Regimental status was gained in 1810, and the new "Regimento de Pardos y Morenos" participated in the Argentine War of Independence.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In 1812, Argentine politician Bernardo de Monteagudo was not allowed as a member of the First Triumvirate, due to his "questionable mother"—i.e., African ancestry. Bernardino Rivadavia, also of African descent, was one of the politicians who were barred from joining the triumvirate. The Assembly of the Year XIII, called to establish the new independent state of Argentina, passed the law of freedom of wombs, whereby children born to slaves thenceforth were automatically free citizens, but did not free those who were already slaves. Many blacks were part of militias and irregular troops that eventually became part of the Argentine Army, but mostly in segregated squadrons. Black slaves could, however, ask to be sold and even find a buyer if they were unhappy with their owners.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: After the abolition of slavery, many blacks faced widespread discrimination. The fourteen schools in Buenos Aires in 1857, only admitted two black children, although 15% of students that year were of color. In Córdoba in 1829, black children were entitled to only two years' secondary schooling, while white Argentine children studied for four years. Universities did not admit blacks until 1853.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Blacks began to publish newspapers and to organize for their rights. One paper, "The Unionist", published in 1877 a statement of equal rights and justice for all people regardless of skin color was published. One of its statements read:


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Other newspapers were "The African Race", the "Black Democrat" and "The Proletarian", all published in 1858. By the 1880s there were about twenty such Argentine blacks published newspapers in Buenos Aires; and some researchers consider these social movements integral to the introduction of socialism and the idea of social justice in Argentine culture.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Some blacks entered politics. José María Morales and Domingo Sosa were in action as senior military officers and held significant political posts.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In the last decades, theories have been disputed over the causation of their decline. Older theories supported a genocide as the main factor in the reduction of their population. Among the causes expressed are the supposed high mortality of black soldiers in the wars of the 19th century (since theoretically, they were a disproportionately high number within the armed forces, which would have been intentionally planned by the governments of the time) and in a yellow fever epidemic in 1871 that affected the south of the city of Buenos Aires, as well as a large emigration to Uruguay (due to the fact that there would have been a larger black population and a more favorable political climate).


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Research in recent decades has ruled out such theories. Although it is true that blacks made up an important part of the armies and militias of the 19th century, they were not the majority nor did their number differ much from that of Amerindians and whites, even in the lower ranks (the so-called cannon fodder). Nor did the yellow fever epidemics that affected Buenos Aires (especially the most lethal, which was that of 1871) have a big effect, since demographic studies do not support that view (on the contrary, they show that the most affected were recent European immigrants living in poverty) and, furthermore, this theory does not explain the decline of the black population in the rest of Argentina.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: The most widely accepted theory today is that the black population gradually decreased over the generations due to its mixture with whites and, to a lesser extent, Amerindians, which occurred frequently since the 18th century in the colonial period, and that it accelerated even more in the late 19th century (in the already independent Argentina) with the arrival of the massive immigration wave from Europe and Middle East, which was promoted by the Argentine governments of the time precisely so that the non-white population becomes "diluted" within the white majority through racial mixture. This process was similar to that of the rest of the continent (with different results depending on the volume of immigration and the particular demographic characteristics of each region) and is known as "whitening".


title: Afro-Argentines

text: This was based on the falsehood that whites (especially those belonging to Western European cultures) were the only ones capable of carrying on a civilization, while most non-whites (such as Amerindians and Blacks) were inevitably related to "barbarism".


title: Afro-Argentines

text: However, unlike other regions of the Americas where there was a strong violent segregation of non-whites in an attempt to prevent racial mixing, Argentine elite thought that non-white offspring could be improved if were the result of a mix with whites. The exception, since mid-19h century, were those non-whites that still lived in tribal societies that were not part of the Argentine culture and weren't under the control of the government, in this case, Amerindians from several local indigenous peoples that usually had conflicts with it (other ones, on the other hand, were becoming assimilated to the country's society), thus seen as incorrigible savages that were a block to the progress and a threat to the nation. This led to wars against them (like the Conquest of the Desert) that in some cases ended with genocides or mass murders, also taking their lands.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In late colonial times the racial mixture was common because, despite the racism prevailing at the time, the level of segregation and violence towards non-whites who were part of colonial society in the territories that are currently part of Argentina, was less than that which existed in other European colonies in the Americas and other Spanish colonial regions where a greater intensity of slave labor was required (such as mining enclaves or agricultural large estates in tropical regions). For this reason, there was less mistreatment towards slaves, who also had greater freedom to circulate, especially those who worked in the fields, where labor associated with livestock and extensive farming was fundamentally required. It was also more common for them to be able to buy their freedom, so even several decades before the abolition of slavery, it was in clear decline.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: On the other hand, due to the association of blackness with barbarism, already at the last decades of the 18th century, blacks (who by then normally had a certain level of racial mixture and therefore lighter skin than most of slaves recently arrived from Africa, as well as less typical features of the race), according to their degree of freedom or good relationship with their masters or white social environment, gradually came to be considered in censuses and legal documents in ambiguous pseudo-racial categories (but beneficial for them) such as those of "pardos" and "trigueños" (which also included amerindians who were part of colonial society and even whites with a high level of racial mixture) in an attempt to detach them from their slave past and, theorically, make them more functional to the modern society that the authorities intended to conform (according to their eurocentrist vision), and this allowed those already mixed blacks a better social position and a greater degree of freedom by moving away from their original racial category. In other cases, also due to their ambiguous phenotype, several tried to be recorded as "Indians" (if they could explain their indigenous ancestry) because this would allow them to obtain freedom, since from the 16th century, in Spanish colonies it was prohibited the slavery of indigenous peoples of the Americas through the New Laws and the Laws of the Indies (despite this, it happened illegally, but much less frequently than the slavery of black Africans and their descendants, which was permitted). There were even cases of black women with a high degree of racial mixture who managed to be noted as "señoras" or "doñas" (categories reserved only for white women) with the help of white people from their environment (for example, couples).


title: Afro-Argentines

text: These situations made blacks prefer to form families with whites and Amerindians in order to have children who had lighter skin and features more distant from the natives of Sub-Saharan Africa, which increased their level of racial mixture and, therefore, decline, which lasted strongly even after the abolition of slavery, since people with lighter skin continued to rule society and make up the majority of the elite, thus leaving dark skin associated with poverty in the Argentine idiosyncrasy.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: The classification of an increasing number of non-whites (especially those who had at least some racial mixture) into new ambiguous pseudo-racial categories was devised by authorities since the last years of the colonial period as a method to move them from their original racial identities ("negros" and "indios") in an attempt to make them more assimilable within the modern society that was sought to create. This was a first part of the "whitening", known as the "lightening", in which non-whites were put gradually into categories that were closer to the white one, that was the more desirable. Also, the white elite, which was a minority in most places until the mid-19th century, used this as a way to make a difference between "us" and "them", allowing many people to "leave" their undesirable original categories, but at the same time preventing them to become labeled as whites (since in certain cases they presented an aspect closer to the white than that of the Amerindian or Black) to deny them the access to the power and privileges reserved for a minority.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In this way, terms such as "morochos" or "criollos" (which expanded its original colonial meaning, that was referred only to Spanish-descent whites born in the Americas) came to be used to catalog the vast majority of the population that was not clearly white (or whites descendants of Spanish from the colonial period in the case of "criollos"), helping later the narrative of the disappearance of Amerindians and Blacks in the country. The very people belonging to these races (which were already heavily racially mixed, especially in the case of blacks) actively sought to identify with the new categories since they were symbolically closer to whiteness, which made possible more benefits and less discrimination. Only blacks with dark skin were considered as such, and being a minority even within the Argentine black population itself, they were considered as isolated cases or foreigners (since, from the late 19th century, several of them were free African immigrants who arrived recently mainly from Cape Verde). In the case of Amerindians, only those who were part of the indigenous peoples that still survived (who represented a small minority) came to be considered as such, but not those who were part of the majoritarian "non-indigenous" Argentine society.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In 1887 the official percentage of the black population was computed at 1.8% of the total. From that moment on, racial categories were not registered in the censuses. The position of the State became explicit again when the National Census of 1895 was carried out when those responsible stated:


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In reference to the racial mixture that had occurred with blacks for several generations, in 1905 the journalist Juan José de Soiza Reilly stated in his article "Gente de color" (published in the magazine "Caras y Caretas") that:


title: Afro-Argentines

text: From then on, and for almost a century, in Argentina practically no studies were carried out on black Argentines.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Today in Argentina, the Afro-Argentine community is beginning to emerge from the shadows. There have been black organizations such as "Grupo Cultural Afro," "SOS Racismo," and perhaps the most important group "Africa Vive", founded by Pocha Lamadrid, that help to rekindle interest into the African heritage of Argentina. There are also Afro-Uruguayan and Afro-Brazilian migrants who have helped to expand the African culture. Afro-Uruguayan migrants have brought candombe to Argentina, while Afro-Brazilians teach capoeira, orisha, and other African derived secula. It has been well over a century since Argentina has reflected the African racial ancestry in its census count. Therefore, calculating the exact number of Afro-descendants is very difficult; however, Africa Vive calculates that there are about 1,000,000 partially Afro-descendants in Argentina. The last census, carried on 27 October 2010, introduced the African ancestry survey. Still, as in other Latin American nations, Argentines of Black African background may not always identify as Afro-Argentine, due to the pervasive negative connotations associated to blackness and the lack of historical records for black bloodlines in Argentina.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: The Forum of African Descent and Africans in Argentina was created on 9 October 2006, with the aim of promoting social and cultural pluralism and the fight against discrimination of a population in the country to reach the two million inhabitants.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Since 2013, November 8 has been celebrated as the National Day of Afro-Argentines and African Culture. The date was chosen to commemorate the recorded date for the death of María Remedios del Valle, a "rabona" and guerrilla fighter, who served with the Army of the North in the war of Independence.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: The National Institute Against Discrimination (INADI) is the public body responsible for combating discrimination and racism. In 2021, the Argentine government announced the establishment of a "Afro-Argentine Community Federal Advisor Council", made up of prominent Afro-Argentine activists and scholars.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: The seeds of candombe originated in present-day Angola, where it was taken to South America during the 17th and 18th centuries by people who had been sold as slaves in the kingdom of Kongo, Anziqua, Nyong, Quang and others, mainly by Portuguese slave traders. The same cultural carriers of candombe colonized Brazil (especially in the area of Salvador de Bahia), Cuba, and the Río de la Plata with its capital Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The different histories and experiences in these regions branched out from the common origin, giving rise to different rhythms.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In Buenos Aires, during the two governments of Juan Manuel de Rosas, it was common that “afroporteños” (black people of Buenos Aires) practiced the candombe in public, even encouraged and visited by Rosas and his daughter, Manuela. Following Rosas's defeat in the battle of Caseros in 1852, Buenos Aires began a profound and rapid cultural change which emphasized European culture. In this context, the afroporteños replicated their ancestral cultural patterns increasingly into their private life. For this reason since 1862, the press, intellectuals and politicians began to assert the misconception of Afro-Argentine disappearance that has remained virtually until now in the Argentine social imaginary.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Many researchers agree that the candombe, through the development of the milonga, is an essential component in the genesis of tango.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Perhaps the most lasting effect of Black influence in Argentina was the tango, which contains and continues some of the features of the "tangos", meetings in which slaves assembled to sing and dance. The modern term for a tango ball, "milonga", has its roots in the Quimbanda language of Angola, and a large Afro-Argentine and Afro-Uruguayan contribution is also evident in the development of milonga and chacarera music. The song tradition of the "payadores" was also associated with Afro-Argentines, with some scholars, for example George Reid Andrews, arguing that it originated among the Afro-Argentine community, while others, such as Sylvain B. Poosson, view it as a continuation of the Andalusian traditions like the trovo. Whatever their origin, payadas provided an opportunity for Black singers like Gabino Ezeiza to use music to articulate political consciousness and defend their right to exist within Argentina's increasingly white-dominated society.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: According to the Argentine national census of 2010, the total population of Argentines was 40,117,096, of whom 149,493 (0.37%) identified as Afro-Argentine, although according to gene pools studies, the Argentine population with some degree of Sub-Saharan African descent would be around 7.5%.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Despite the fact that in the 1960s it was calculated that Argentina owed two thirds of the volume of its population to European immigration, over 5% of Argentines state they have at least one black ancestor, and a further 20% state they do not know whether or not they have any black ancestors. Genetic studies carried out in 2005 showed that the average level of African genetic contribution in the population of Buenos Aires is 2.2%, but that this component is concentrated in 10% of the population who display notably higher levels of African ancestry. Today there is still a notable Afro-Argentine community in the Buenos Aires districts of San Telmo and La Boca. There are also quite a few African-descended Argentines in Merlo and Ciudad Evita cities, in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Between 12,000 and 15,000 descendants of immigrants from Cape Verde living in Argentina, of whom about 300 are native to the African continent.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: This immigration began in the late 19th century and became important from the 1920s. The busiest periods were between 1927 and 1933 and the third, after 1946. These migrations were mainly due to droughts in the African country that originated famine and death.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: They were expert sailors and fishermen, which is why most places settled in ports such as Rosario, Buenos Aires, San Nicolás, Bahía Blanca, Ensenada and Dock Sud. 95% of them got jobs in the Military Navy, in the Merchant Navy in the Fluvial Fleet of Argentina and in YPF dockyards or the ELMA.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In the popularly called Barrio del Once there are Africans who have come to escape the conditions of their countries, particularly Senegal. According to the Agency for Refugees in Buenos Aires, they came by seeking asylum or getting a visa to travel to Brazil and then Argentina, sometimes traveling as stowaways on ships. When denied a residence permit, the African refugees remain in the country without status and become lawful targets of human trafficking network. On Sunday some of the Senegalese community comes together to eat traditional dishes of their country. Some places already have African food recipes.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Since 2004 some Africans emigrated from their home countries and stowed away to Argentina, particularly the port of Rosario, Santa Fe. Although figures are inadequate the numbers increase every year: in 2008 70 refugees arrived, after some 40 the previous year; only 10 remained, the rest were repatriated. Many were children.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: They usually get on ships without knowing where they go, or believing they are going to a developed country in the northern hemisphere. They come from Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: In Argentina, as in other countries of the Americas, racism related to skin tone dates back to the days of colonial rule. In the caste system imposed by Spain, the descendants of people from Black Africa occupied a place still lower than the descendants of persons belonging to aboriginal peoples.


title: Afro-Argentines

text: Colonial racism passed into Argentine culture to a certain extent, as shown by certain phrases included in the national literature. Disputes with a racist tinge were depicted in a famous passage from José Hernández's book, Martín Fierro (La ida), published in 1870, in which the main character duels with a black gaucho after insulting his girlfriend and insulting him with the following verse:


title: Denon

text: The company was initially named , which was shortened to Denon. The company is actively involved with sound systems and electric appliance production. Later the company merged with other related companies and as a result of this the company name became Denon.


title: Denon

text: There followed a number of mergers and tie-ins over the next few decades as firstly the company merged with Japan-US Recorders Manufacturing in 1912, and then in 1928 the brand "Columbia" was introduced when the company became Japan Columbia Recorders. A further change of name occurred in 1946 when the company renamed itself Nippon Columbia.


title: Denon

text: The Denon brand was first established in 1947 when Nippon Columbia merged with Japan Denki Onkyo. D&M Holdings Inc. was created in May 2002 when Denon Ltd and Marantz Japan Inc. merged. On March 1, 2017, Sound United LLC completed the acquisition of D+M Holdings.


title: Denon

text: Today, the company specializes in professional and consumer home cinema and audio equipment including A/V receivers, Blu-ray players, tuners, headphones, and wireless music systems. Denon is also known for high-end AV receivers and moving coil phonograph cartridges. Two M-series models, the Denon M31 and M30, were the most successful radio hi-fi's in the mid-2000s. Since being released to the micro hi-fi DAB market, they have received several awards in Europe.


title: Ron Canada

text: Ronald Ellis Canada (born May 3, 1949) is an American actor with a specialty in portraying judges and detectives. He is best known for "One on One" (2001–2004), "The Shield" (2003–2004), and "Lone Star" (1996).


title: Ron Canada

text: Following completion of the Michele Clark broadcast journalism program at Columbia University, under the guidance of producer Fred Friendly, Canada commenced his career as a television news reporter in 1971 at WBAL-TV. In 1974, he began his three-year tenure at WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. For his work in the nation's capital, Canada was nominated twice for Regional Emmy Awards, receiving the award in 1977. The following year he received an A.P. Award for Outstanding Reporting.


title: Ron Canada

text: He began his acting career in 1978. While making the career transition he worked part-time as a broadcaster for The Voice of America (U.S. Information Agency). He studied acting at The Folger Theatre Group under the tutelage of Franchelle Stewart Dorn. He moved from D.C. to New York in 1985. Shortly thereafter he became the second actor to play the role of 'Troy Maxson' in August Wilson's Fences at The GeVa Theatre in Rochester, New York (January 1986).


title: Ron Canada

text: Canada has had a long career in both television and film, known primarily for his work in "Cinderella Man", "Wedding Crashers", and his recurring role as Under Secretary of State Ted Barrow on "The West Wing". In 1996, Ron received the Dallas Film Critics Award and significant national attention for his performance as "Otis Payne" in John Sayles's film "Lone Star".


title: Ron Canada

text: He played the role of Iago in a "photo negative" version of Shakespeare's "Othello" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. Other notable stage credits include his role as Emmet Tate in "Zooman and The Sign "at New York's Signature Theatre and originating the role of Duncan Troy in "Headstrong"" "at The Ensemble Studio Theatre, which earned him an Audelco Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor.


title: Ron Canada

text: Broadway play - Network - with Bryan Cranston, Tony Goldwyn, and Tatiana Maslany. Mr.Canada portrayed UBS network chieftain Edward George Ruddy.


title: Leafhopper

text: A leafhopper is the common name for any species from the family Cicadellidae. These minute insects, colloquially known as hoppers, are plant feeders that suck plant sap from grass, shrubs, or trees. Their hind legs are modified for jumping, and are covered with hairs that facilitate the spreading of a secretion over their bodies that acts as a water repellent and carrier of pheromones. They undergo a partial metamorphosis, and have various host associations, varying from very generalized to very specific. Some species have a cosmopolitan distribution, or occur throughout the temperate and tropical regions. Some are pests or vectors of plant viruses and phytoplasmas. The family is distributed all over the world, and constitutes the second-largest hemipteran family, with at least 20,000 described species.


title: Leafhopper

text: They belong to a lineage traditionally treated as infraorder Cicadomorpha in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, but as the latter taxon is probably not monophyletic, many modern authors prefer to abolish the Auchenorrhyncha and elevate the cicadomorphs to a suborder Clypeorrhyncha. Members of the tribe Proconiini of the subfamily Cicadellinae are commonly known as sharpshooters.


title: Leafhopper

text: An additional and unique character of leafhoppers is the production of brochosomes, which are thought to protect the animals, and particularly their egg clutches, from predation as well as pathogens.


title: Leafhopper

text: Like other Exopterygota, the leafhoppers undergo direct development from nymph to adult without a pupal stage. While many leafhoppers are drab little insects as is typical for the Membracoidea, the adults and nymphs of some species are quite colorful. Some – in particular Stegelytrinae – have largely translucent wings and resemble flies at a casual glance.


title: Leafhopper

text: Leafhoppers have piercing-sucking mouthparts, enabling them to feed on plant sap. A leafhoppers' diet commonly consists of sap from a wide and diverse range of plants, but some are more host-specific. Leafhoppers mainly are herbivores, but some are known to eat smaller insects, such as aphids, on occasion. A few species are known to be mud-puddling, but as it seems, females rarely engage in such behavior. Many species are also known to opportunistically pierce the human skin and draw blood but the function of such behaviour is unclear.


title: Leafhopper

text: Leafhoppers can transmit plant pathogens, such as viruses, phytoplasmas and bacteria. Cicadellidae species that are significant agricultural pests include the beet leafhopper ("Circulifer tenellus"), the maize leafhopper ("Cicadulina mbila"), potato leafhopper ("Empoasca fabae"), two-spotted leafhopper ("Sophonia rufofascia"), blue-green sharpshooter ("Graphocephala atropunctata"), glassy-winged sharpshooter ("Homalodisca vitripennis"), the common brown leafhopper ("Orosius orientalis"), rice green leafhoppers ("Nephotettix" spp.), and the white apple leafhopper ("Typhlocyba pomaria"). The beet leafhopper ("Circulifer tenellus") can transmit the beet curly top virus to various members of the nightshade family, including tobacco, tomato, or eggplant, and is a serious vector of the disease in chili pepper in the Southwestern United States.


title: Leafhopper

text: In some cases, the plant pathogens distributed by leafhoppers are also pathogens of the insects themselves, and can replicate within the leafhoppers' salivary glands. Leafhoppers are also susceptible to various insect pathogens, including Dicistroviridae viruses, bacteria and fungi; numerous parasitoids attack the eggs and the adults provide food for small insectivores.


title: Leafhopper

text: Some species such as the Australian "Kahaono montana" even build silk nests under the leaves of trees they live in, to protect them from predators.


title: Leafhopper

text: In the now-obsolete classification that was used throughout much of the 20th century, the leafhoppers were part of the Homoptera, a paraphyletic assemblage uniting the basal lineages of Hemiptera and ranked as suborder. The splitting of the Homoptera is likely to be repeated for the Auchenorrhyncha for similar reasons, as the Auchenorrhyncha simply seem to group the moderately advanced Hemiptera, regardless of the fact the highly apomorphic Coleorrhyncha and Heteroptera (typical bugs) evolved from auchenorrhynchans. Hence, a recent trend treats the most advanced hemipterans as three or four lineages, namely Archaeorrhyncha (Fulgoromorpha if included in Auchenorrhyncha), Coleorrhyncha and Heteroptera (sometimes united as Prosorrhyncha) and Clypeorrhyncha.


title: Leafhopper

text: Within the latter, the three traditional superfamilies – Cercopoidea (froghoppers and spittlebugs), Cicadoidea (cicadas) and Membracoidea – appear to be monophyletic. The leafhoppers are the most basal living lineage of Membracoidea, which otherwise include the families Aetalionidae (aetalionid treehoppers), Membracidae (typical treehoppers and thorn bugs), Melizoderidae, and Myerslopiidae.


title: Leafhopper

text: The leafhoppers are divided into 25 subfamilies, which are listed here alphabetically, as too little is known about the family's internal phylogeny.


title: Jack Smethurst

text: John Smethurst (9 April 1932 – 16 February 2022) was an English television and film comic actor. He was best known for his role as Eddie Booth in the British television sitcom "Love Thy Neighbour".


title: Jack Smethurst

text: He made his film debut in 1958's "Carry On Sergeant". This was followed by parts in the films "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" (1960), "A Kind of Loving" (1962), "Run with the Wind" (1966), "Night After Night After Night" (1970), the big-screen version of "Please Sir!" (1971) and the ITV sitcom "For the Love of Ada" (1970–71) amongst others, before he landed the role for which he is best known—that of bigoted socialist and union leader, 'brother' Eddie Booth in "Love Thy Neighbour". The programme ran for eight series between 1972 and 1976. During this run he also appeared in the 1974 film version of the sitcom "Man About the House". He reprised his role as Eddie Booth for the 1979 sequel "Love Thy Neighbour in Australia".


title: Jack Smethurst

text: After "Love Thy Neighbour" ended, his film appearances were rare, but included "Chariots of Fire" (1981), the John Goodman vehicle "King Ralph" (1991; which re-united him with his "Love Thy Neighbour" co-star Rudolph Walker) and 1996's "La Passione".


title: Jack Smethurst

text: He made a guest appearance as Davenport in Britain's longest-running television sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine" in 1997.


title: Jack Smethurst

text: He played four different characters in "Coronation Street": a brewery drayman in 1961, and in January 1967 Percy Bridge, who tried to con Elsie Tanner. Between 1980 and 1983, he occasionally appeared as Johnny Webb, one of the men on Eddie Yeats' bin round. In 2001, he returned for several months as Stan Wagstaff, a friend of Jimmy Kelly, who left his allotment to Jack Duckworth. Together with his brother Ernie, Stan let Jack in on Jimmy's big secret—he used his allotment shed to brew poteen.


title: Jack Smethurst

text: Smethurst also starred in Vince Powell’s seven-part BBC Radio 2 slice-of-life sitcom "A Proper Charlie" in 1984, as factory worker Charlie Garside. Madge Hindle played his wife with Jane Hazlegrove and Jason Littler as their daughter and son. A second series of eight episodes followed at the end of 1985.


title: Jack Smethurst

text: He worked on stage in Australia when he appeared in the play "Run for Your Wife" during 1987 and 1988, and the production toured the country. Other members of the cast were David McCallum, Eric Sykes and Katy Manning. Smethurst appeared in a production of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" in 1999.


title: Jack Smethurst

text: Smethurst played the "Man in Phone Box" in S5/E8 (1995) of the British sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances". In the episode, Hyacinth Bucket tries to get Smethurst's character to relinquish a public telephone booth, which leads her husband, Richard, to yell at her forcefully for the only time in the entire series.


title: Jack Smethurst

text: Smethurst married actress Julie Nicholls in 1957. The couple had four children; Perdita, Merry, Jane and Adam. His son Adam, also an actor, is married to the Welsh actress Rakie Ayola. Smethurst died at his home in Chorleywood on 16 February 2022, at the age of 89.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: Misty Elizabeth May-Treanor (; née May; born July 30, 1977) is a retired American professional beach volleyball player. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and , was the most successful female beach volleyball player having won 112 tournaments in domestic and international competition.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor and teammate Kerri Walsh Jennings were gold medalists in beach volleyball at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. They also won the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in 2003, 2005 and 2007. The pair set various records throughout their partnership, including a win streak of 112 consecutive matches (19 consecutive tournament titles) in 20072008, breaking their own previous record of 89 consecutive match wins. They have been called "the greatest beach volleyball team of all time."


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor retired from competitive play on August 8, 2012, after she and Walsh Jennings won gold in the 2012 Summer Olympics. She was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2016.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May was born in 1977 in Los Angeles to Barbara (née Grubb), a nationally ranked tennis player, and Butch May, a member of the 1968 United States men's national volleyball team. She has two older half brothers, Brack and Scott. She grew up playing beach volleyball with her parents at the Santa Monica Pier, and at age 8 teamed with her father to play in her first beach volleyball tournament. May also played soccer and tennis, as well as participating in dance. She attended primary school at Brightwood Elementary School in Monterey Park and Roosevelt Elementary School in Santa Monica. As a child, she was baby-sat by Karch Kiraly, future national volleyball player and United States women's national volleyball team head coach.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: In her 2010 autobiography, May-Treanor stated both of her parents were alcoholics. She also asserted her mother would at times become violent when drinking. From the age of 4 to 15, she lived with her grandparents. In 1988, her father committed to living his life sober after an automobile accident in which he struck and nearly killed a motorcyclist.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May grew up in Costa Mesa, California, attending Newport Harbor High School from 1991 through 1995. She helped her team win the state championship in volleyball in both her sophomore and senior years, 1992 and 1994. During her junior year in 1993 she was named the Division I All-CIF team Player of the Year, and the following year she was selected by "USA Today" as the best high school girls' volleyball player in the nation.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: While at Newport Harbor High she also competed in track and field, excelling in the high jump. At the CIF California State Meet in 1993 she finished second in the high jump to future heptathlete, Tracye Lawyer.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor was later inducted into the inaugural class of the Newport Harbor High School's Hall of Fame in 2014.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor played volleyball for the Long Beach State 49ers from 1995 to 1999. The 1998 team that May captained was the first women's NCAA volleyball team to have an undefeated season. She graduated with a BA in kinesiology and fitness in 2002 and was inducted into the Long Beach State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: During her tenure there, she racked up numerous Big West Conference and NCAA awards and honors, including the Honda Sports Award for the nation's best female volleyball player, and the Honda-Broderick Cup for the best overall female collegiate athlete for 1998–99, and back-to-back National Player of the Year awards in 1997 and 1998.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: As the starting setter in 1998, May-Treanor led Long Beach State University to the Division I NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship with a 36–0 record. She shared the NCAA Championship Most Outstanding Player award after setting a tournament record with 20 service aces.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: She attended Concordia University in Irvine, California to earn a master's degree in coaching and athletic administration. Her degree was conferred on May 4, 2013.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May played her first professional match on the AVP tour in May 1999 while still a college senior. After graduating from Long Beach State in 1999, she joined the United States women's national volleyball team. After a few months she quit the national team to focus on beach volleyball, teaming with Holly McPeak.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: The pair played their first tournament together on the FIVB tour in Salvador, Brazil in November 1999. Seeded 22nd, McPeak/May finished 9th.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: The 2000 season saw the team of May and McPeak find success, both in domestic and international competitions. They won their first tournament together in April at a USAV event, followed by two wins on the FIVB tour, and one on the now-defunct BVA. May was selected as the BVA Rookie of the Year for 2000. With three FIVB tournament wins and no finishes lower than 5th, the pair qualified for one of the two US Olympic berths, a goal McPeak was looking for when she first partnered with May. At the 2000 Summer Olympics the pair won in the opening round and in the round of 16 before losing 16–14 in a hard-fought quarterfinal match against Sandra Pires and Adriana Samuel of Brazil. The quarterfinal loss left the team in a tie for 5th place at the 2000 summer Olympics.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: After completing the 2000 season with McPeak, May teamed up with a new partner Kerri Walsh, playing as a defender behind Walsh's block. Rather than play on the newly reformed AVP tour, the duo spent the 2001 and 2002 seasons gaining valuable experience competing on the international FIVB tour. They won their first FIVB tour championship in 2002. In 2003, May and Walsh signed with the AVP. They received "Team of the Year" honors after having an undefeated domestic season, going 39–0 in match victories with eight tournament wins. On the 2003 international tour, May-Treanor and Walsh went 52–4 in match victories.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: For nearly the entire period from their initial partnering in 2001, to their respective hiatuses in late 2008, May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings dominated both the AVP and FIVB beach volleyball tours. At one point, May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings had a win streak of 112 consecutive matches and 19 straight tournaments that lasted from August 2007 to August 2008, breaking their own previous record of 89 consecutive match wins and 15 straight tournaments, set before the 2004 Summer Olympics.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: Following their gold medal victory at the Beijing Olympics, May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings returned to the 2008 AVP Tour. Their win streak of 112 matches was broken with an upset victory by fellow 2008 Olympians Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs at the AVP Shootout in Cincinnati, Ohio. May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings lost again on September 7, falling to April Ross and Jennifer Kessy in the semifinals of an AVP tournament in Santa Barbara, California, marking the first time since April 2007 that the duo missed reaching an AVP tour final.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: For the 2010 season, with Walsh Jennings taking a break from competition for the birth of her second son, May-Treanor teamed up with Branagh. The two won several tournaments together, but struggled for much of the year.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: Soon after winning her gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, May-Treanor ruptured her achilles tendon during dance practice for a performance on the show "Dancing with the Stars". It was successfully repaired, though she did not return to competition for nearly a year.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor, just prior to teaming with Kerri Walsh-Jennings for a third straight gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics, announced that she was retiring from beach volleyball. She confirmed this shortly after the Olympics victory.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor completed her Graduate Degree with Concordia University Irvine and received a master's degree in Coaching and Athletic Administration.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor was a member of the women's volleyball coaching staff at Irvine Valley College beginning in 2001, though she is no longer listed as a staff member. IVC head coach, Tom Pestolesi, was her high school volleyball coach.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: As of July 2016, she serves as the Director of Volleyball at Long Beach City College where she coaches the women's indoor and beach volleyball teams. The LBCC indoor and beach teams thrived under her leadership. In the 2016–17 season, the Vikings went 16-5 and won their first conference title in 16 years, also qualifying for the state playoffs where they made it to the second round. For beach, they were successful in their inaugural year, making it to the state finals and having one of the teams win the state title. In the 2017–18 season, the indoor team went 18-5 and again lost in the second round of playoffs.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: She also owns a beach volleyball club called Dream in Gold (DIG) to train the next generation of beach volleyball players.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: Affected by an abdominal injury in her first Olympics, May finished fifth with partner Holly McPeak in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: Riding a 90-match win streak, May and Walsh continued their winning ways through the 2004 Summer Olympics. In semifinal play, the pair defeated fellow Americans — and May's former partner — Holly McPeak and partner Elaine Youngs. May and Walsh defeated Brazil in the championship match to win the gold medal. The duo did not lose a single set in all seven matches.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: On August 21, May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings repeated as Olympic gold medalists, defeating the first-seeded Chinese team in two games. They are the only beach volleyball team to repeat as gold medalists. May-Treanor was named the Most Outstanding Player for the women's competition.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. In the preliminary round, they extended their Olympic winning streak to 32 consecutive sets without a loss with wins over Australia and the Czech Republic. The streak came to an end when they lost their first set to the Schwaiger sisters from Austria; May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings went on to win the match 17–21, 21–8,


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings defeated fellow Americans April Ross and Jennifer Kessy in the final to claim the gold medal (21–16, 21–16).


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: In May 2018, May-Treanor was appointed by President Trump, to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, where she served as a co-chair.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May began dating professional baseball catcher, Matt Treanor, in January 2004. The two later wed in November of that year. She and her husband reside in Coral Springs, Florida. They also own a home in Long Beach, California. May-Treanor gave birth to the couple's first child, Malia Barbara, on June 3, 2014. The couple later welcomed fraternal twin girls, Mele Elizarin and Mia Kanoelani, on November 9, 2017.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor has two half brothers; Brack is a chef and competed on the Food Network show "Chopped". Both May-Treanor's maternal aunt, Betty Ann Grubb Stuart, and maternal first cousin, Taylor Dent, were professional tennis players.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: In her 2010 memoir, May-Treanor revealed she had been sexually assaulted while in college, pressed charges against her assailant, and testified at the trial.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: A tattoo on May-Treanor's shoulder of an angel with the initials "B.M." is a dedication to her mother, Barbara May, who died of cancer in 2002.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor has made numerous minor television appearances, including "Dancing with the Stars", episodes of "", "Wizards of Waverly Place", and the "Late Show with David Letterman".


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: In 2008, she competed in season 7 of "Dancing with the Stars" with partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy. May-Treanor ruptured her Achilles tendon during a training session for the show, and was consequently forced to withdraw from the competition.


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: Following the 2008 Olympics, May-Treanor appeared in an episode of the Disney series "Wizards of Waverly Place". On August 14, 2012, she appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart".


title: Misty May-Treanor

text: May-Treanor appeared alongside Jennifer Kessy in the season 9 episode of "Hell's Kitchen" as chef's table guest in the red kitchen.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Standpoint theory, or standpoint epistemology, is a theory for analyzing inter-subjective discourses. Standpoint theory proposes that authority is rooted in individuals' personal knowledge and perspectives and the power that such authority exerts.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Standpoint theory's central concept is that an individual's perspectives are shaped by their social and political experiences. The amalgamation of a person's experiences forms a standpoint—a point of view—through which that individual sees and understands the world. In response to critiques that early standpoint theory treated social perspectives as monolithic or essentialized, social theorists understand standpoints as multifaceted rather than unvarying or absolute. For example, while Hispanic women may generally share some perspectives, particularly with regard to ethnicity and gender, they are not defined solely by these viewpoints; despite some common features, there is no essentially Hispanic female identity.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Standpoint theorists emphasize the utility of a naturalistic, or everyday experiential, concept of knowing (i.e., epistemology). One's standpoint (whether reflexively considered or not) shapes which concepts are intelligible, which claims are heard and understood by whom, which features of the world are perceptually salient, which reasons are understood to be relevant and forceful, and which conclusions credible.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Standpoint theory supports what feminist theorist Sandra Harding calls strong objectivity, or the notion that the perspectives of marginalized and/or oppressed individuals can help to create more objective accounts of the world. Through the outsider-within phenomenon, these individuals are placed in a unique position to point to patterns of behavior that those immersed in the dominant group culture are unable to recognize. Standpoint theory gives voice to the marginalized groups by allowing them to challenge the status quo as the outsider within the status quo representing the dominant position of privilege.


title: Standpoint theory

text: The predominant culture in which all groups exist is not experienced in the same way by all persons or groups. The views of those who belong to groups with more social power are validated more than those in marginalized groups. Those in marginalized groups must learn to be bicultural, or to "pass" in the dominant culture to survive, even though that perspective is not their own.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Feminist philosophy popularized and developed standpoint theory in the 1970s and 1980s. The term was coined by Sandra Harding to categorize epistemologies that emphasize women's knowledge. In Harding’s 1986 book "The Science Question in Feminism", she distinguishes the idea of a standpoint from the more generic idea of a perspective with the requirement of political engagement. Harding argues that the political engagement of feminists and their active focus on the lives of women allows them to have an epistemically privileged “standpoint.” Harding also maintained that it is the marginalized groups that ultimately provide the clearest view on the true opportunities and obstacles faced in society.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Feminist standpoint theory’s initial focus was in challenging the idea of scientific neutrality and objectivity from a presupposed generalized knower. Closely related to epistemology, early standpoint theorists explored how one’s gendered identity affected their epistemic resources and capacities, or their access to knowledge.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Some uses of standpoint theory have been based in Hegelian and Marxist theory, such as Hegel's study of the different standpoints of slaves and masters in 1807. Hegel, a German Idealist, claimed that the master-slave relationship is about people's belonging positions, and the groups affect how people receive knowledge and power. Hegel's influence can be seen in some later feminist studies. For example, Nancy Hartsock examined standpoint theory by using relations between men and women. She published "The Feminist Standpoint: Developing Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism" in 1983. Hartsock used Hegel's master-slave dialectic and Marx's theory of class and capitalism as an inspiration to look into matters of sex and gender.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Standpoint theory evolved to focus on the social positions such as gender, race, social class, culture, and economic status. Standpoint theory seeks to develop a particular feminist epistemology, that values the experiences of women and minorities as a source for knowledge.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Prominent standpoint theorists include Dorothy Smith, Nancy Hartsock, Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding, Alison Wylie, Lynette Hunter and Patricia Hill Collins. Second-wave standpoint theorists and activists in the United States developed the related concept of intersectionality to examine oppressions caused by the interactions between social factors such as gender, race, sexuality, and culture. For example, intersectionality can explain how social factors contribute to divisions of labor in the workforce. Though intersectionality was developed to consider social and philosophical issues, it has been applied in a range of academic areas like higher education, identity politics, and geography.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Contemporary standpoint theory is evolving as a response to changes in the political and economic landscape, like the first female and person of color Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, the global pandemic and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In a modern times, third-wave feminism emphasizes inclusive community and action. This has resulted in a resurgence of feminist activism and further integration of intersecting identities, like the unique perspective of Black women and abortion rights.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Standpoint theorist, Patricia Hill Collins, highlights the resonance of Standpoint Theory with Black feminist groups, in that, standpoint theory can be used as a framework for understanding Black feminist thought. Standpoint theory can be a framework for understanding the oppression of Black women or what feminist theorist, Catherine E. Harnois, coins as the “Black women’s standpoint.”


title: Standpoint theory

text: Generally, standpoint theory gives insight into specific circumstances only available to the members of a certain collective standpoint. According to Michael Ryan, "the idea of a collective standpoint does not imply an essential overarching characteristic but rather a sense of belonging to a group bounded by a shared experience." Kristina Rolin states that "the assumption of essentialism is that all women share the same socially grounded perspective in virtue of being women, the assumption of automatic epistemic privilege is that epistemic advantage accrues to the subordinate automatically, just in virtue of their occupying a particular social position." According to this approach:


title: Standpoint theory

text: Since standpoint theory focuses on marginalized populations, it is often applied within fields that focus on these populations. Standpoint has been referenced as a concept that should be acknowledged and understood in the social work field, especially when approaching and assisting clients. Social workers seek to understand the concept of positionality within dynamic systems to encourage empathy. Many marginalized populations rely on the welfare system to survive. Unfortunately, those who structure the welfare system typically have never needed to utilize its services before. Standpoint theory has been presented as a method to improving the welfare system by recognizing suggestions made by those within the welfare system. In Africa, standpoint theory has catalyzed a social movement where women are introduced to the radio in order to promote awareness of their experiences and hardships and to help these women heal and find closure. Another example dealing with Africa is slavery and how slavery differed greatly depending on if one was the slave or the master. If there were any power relationships, there could never be a single perspective. No viewpoint could ever be complete, and there is no limit to anyone's perspective.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Asante and Davis’s (1989) study of interracial encounters in the workplace found that because of different cultural perspectives, approaching organizational interactions with others with different beliefs, assumptions, and meanings often leads to miscommunication. Brenda Allen stated in her research that, "Organizational members' experiences, attitudes, and behaviors in the workplace are often influenced by race-ethnicity."


title: Standpoint theory

text: Paul Adler and John Jermier suggest that management scholars should be aware of their standpoints. They write that those studying management should "consciously choose [their] standpoints and take responsibility for the impact (or lack of impact) of [their] scholarship on the world."


title: Standpoint theory

text: Jermier argued that all parts of a research study – identifying the problem, theorizing research questions, gathering and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and the knowledge produced – are there to some extent because of the researcher’s standpoint. This caused him to question what standpoint to adopt in the management of scientists. To avoid falling into limitations of the status quo and certain standpoints, he said that "the view from below has greater potential to generate more complete and more objective knowledge claims." He continues to say that “if our desire is to heal the world, we will learn more about how the root mechanisms of the world work and about how things can be changed by adopting the standpoints of those people and other parts of nature that most deeply suffer its wounds.”


title: Standpoint theory

text: Feminist standpoint theorists make three principal claims: (1) Knowledge is socially situated. (2) Marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalized. (3) Research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized.


title: Standpoint theory

text: Specifically, feminist standpoint theory is guided by four main theses: strong objectivity, the situated knowledge, epistemic advantage, and power relations.