Abstract: In contemporary America, racial gaps in achievement are primarily due to gaps in skills. Skill gaps emerge early, before children enter school. Families are major producers of skills, thus inequali...

Abstract: In 1965, when Daedalus published two issues on “The Negro American,” civil rights in the United States had experienced a series of triumphs and setbacks. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 extended basic citizenship rights to African Americans, and there was hope for further positive change. Yet 1965 also saw violent confrontations in Selma, Alabama, and the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles that were fueled by racial tensions. Against this backdrop of progress and retreat, the contributors to the Daedalus volumes of the mid-1960s considered how socioeconomic factors affected the prosperity, well-being, and social standing of African Americans. Guest editor Lawrence D. Bobo suggests that today we inhabit a similarly unsettled place: situated somewhere between the overt discrimination of Jim Crow and the aspiration of full racial equality. In his introduction, Bobo paints a broad picture of the racial terrain in America today before turning the volume over to the contributors, who...

Abstract: Every day, individuals around the world retrieve, share, and exchange information on the Internet. We interact online to share personal information, ½nd answers to questions, make ½nancial transactions, play social games, and maintain professional and personal relationships. Sometimes our online interactions take place between two or more humans. In other cases, we rely on computers to man- age information on our behalf. In each scenario, risk and uncertainty are essential for determining pos- sible actions and outcomes. This essay highlights common de½ciencies in our understanding of key con- cepts such as trust, trustworthiness, cooperation, and assurance in online environments. Empirical evi- dence from experimental work in computer-mediated environments underscores the promises and perils of overreliance on security and assurance structures as replacements for interpersonal trust. These con- ceptual distinctions are critical because the future shape of the Internet will depend on whether we build assurance structures to limit and control ambiguity or allow trust to emerge in the presence of risk and uncertainty.

Abstract: A succession of doctrines for enhancing cybersecurity has been advocated in the past, including prevention, risk management, and deterrence through accountability. None has proved effectiv...

Abstract: Must the Internet promote political fragmentation? Although this is a possible outcome of personalized online news, we argue that other futures are possible and that thoughtful design could promote more socially desirable behavior. Research has shown that individuals crave opinion reinforcement more than they avoid exposure to diverse viewpoints and that, in many situations, hearing the other side is desirable. We suggest that, equipped with this knowledge, software designers ought to create tools that encourage and facilitate consumption of diverse news streams, making users, and society, better off. We propose several techniques to help achieve this goal. One approach focuses on making useful or intriguing opinion-challenges more accessible. The other centers on nudging people toward diversity by creating environments that accentuate its benefits. Advancing research in this area is critical in the face of increasingly partisan news media, and we believe these strategies can help.

Abstract: Wilson reflects on the nearly eight hundred research studies that claim to provide an empirical test of the arguments presented in his book The Declining Significance of Race (1978; second edition, 1980). Wilson considers representative studies that incorrectly address his book, before discussing those publications that correctly address his thesis, including those that uphold, partially support, or challenge his arguments and basic claims. In the process, Wilson explores how some of these studies led him to revise or extend parts of his basic thesis, especially as it pertains to race and interracial relations today. Wilson also takes into account changes within the African American population since he wrote The Declining Significance of Race. He reveals how his thoughts have changed with respect to both race- and class-based solutions for the problems faced by people of color.

Abstract: Recent projections indicate that by the year 2050, racial minorities will comprise more than 50 percent of the U.S. population. That is, the United States is expected to become a “majority-minority” nation. This essay adopts a social psychological approach to consider how these dramatic demographic changes may affect both racial minorities and white Americans. Specifically, drawing from theoretical work on social identification, the essay examines the likely psychological meaning (if any) of a majority-minority nation for racial minorities' self-concepts and the resulting effects on their evaluations of members of other racial minority groups. In addition, the potential reactions of white Americans to the possibility of becoming a numerical minority are explored. Drawing on reactions to the election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States, the authors conclude by discussing the implications of America's shifting racial demographics for the U.S. racial hierarchy.

Abstract: © 2011 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences CHARLES J. DUNLAP, JR., is Visiting Professor of the Practice of Law and Associate Director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University School of Law. He served thirty-four years in the U.S. Air Force and retired as a Major General in 2010. His publications include “The Air Force and 21st Century Conflicts: Dysfunctional or Dynamic?” in Lessons for a Long War: How America Can Win on New Battle1⁄2elds (edited by Thomas Donnelly and Frederick Kagan, 2010); and “Airpower,” in Understanding Counterinsurgency: Doctrine, Operations, and Challenges (edited by Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney, 2010). [The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . [W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. –President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1961)1

Abstract: Contractors are deeply intertwined with the American military and U.S. foreign policy. Over half of the personnel the United States has deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003 have been con- tractors. Their relationship with the U.S. government, the public, and domestic and international law differs from that of military personnel, and these differences pose both bene½ts and risks. America's use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) can provide or enhance forces for global gover- nance. Yet PMSCs can also be used to pursue agendas that do not have the support of American, inter- national, or local publics. Thus far, the use of PMSCs has proved a mixed bag in terms of effectiveness, accountability, and American values. Moving forward in a way that maximizes the bene½ts of contrac- tors and minimizes their risks will require careful management of the uncomfortable trade-offs these forces present.

Abstract: This essay's approach to race and the Tea Party is twofold: to consider the role race plays in Tea Partiers' claim that they have “lost their country” and to question why blacks would be members of the Tea Party given its radically conservative views. To explore the latter, Walker looks to black and other minority conservatives from the past who embraced political conservatism as a means to escape stigmatization. Walker's essay argues that America has become less racist than it used to be, but he resists characterizing the nation as “post-racial.” He uses examples of conflicts between Asians, blacks, and Mexicans to further his point.

Abstract: Until World War II, the peacetime Army's primary job was not to be ready to ½ght instantly, but to provide a core of military expertise that would enable a wartime force of citizen-soldiers to be built up after war began. Wars were infrequent. Since the end of the Cold War, the Army has become a force that deploys and ½ghts on a regular basis. The true citizen-soldier-who serves for only a few years and remains, at heart, a civilian-is no longer with us and is not likely to return in the foreseeable future, despite nostalgia for his passing. In the midst of a civilian society that is increasingly paci½stic, easygoing, and well adjusted, the Army (career and non-career soldiers alike) remains flinty, harshly results-orient- ed, and emotionally extreme. The inevitable civil-military gap has become a chasm.

Abstract: The evolution of the Internet in the past decade — from a slow, stationary, and primarily communications-based technology to a mobile, fast technology that supports a range of communication, participatory, and transactional applications — has made access more valuable, and disconnection more consequential, for individuals. This evolution means that stakeholders should embrace a different framing of the digital divide, focusing on the costs of digital exclusion. These costs can fall on an individual, if the Internet is the only way to carry out some tasks, and on society, if expensive and less-efficient legacy systems must be maintained to serve a shrinking minority without access. Whereas the digital divide debate concerns technology scarcity for certain population segments, addressing the costs of digital exclusion is about developing people's capacity to manage today's abundance of digital resources. This essay offers suggestions on a framework to develop tools that will enable individuals to t...

Abstract: In this essay, Griffin brings to the fore two extraordinary black women of our age: First Lady Michelle Obama and entertainment mogul Beyonce Knowles Both women signify change in race relations in America, yet both reveal that the history of racial inequality in this country is far from over As an Ivy League-educated descendent of slaves, Michelle Obama is not just unfamiliar to the mainstream media and the Washington political scene; during the 2008 presidential campaign, she was vilified as angry and unpatriotic Beyonce, who controls the direction of her career in a way that pioneering black women entertainers could not, has nonetheless styled herself in ways that recall the distinct racial history of the Creole South Griffin considers how Michelle Obama's and Beyonce's use of their respective family histories and ancestry has bolstered or diminished their popular appeal

Abstract: The Internet is not the only critical infrastructure that relies on the participation of unorganized and technically inexpert end users. Transportation, health, waste management, and disaster preparedness are other areas where cooperation between unorganized citizens who lack experience with the domain has increased resiliency, reduced social costs, and helped meet shared goals. Theories of community-based production and management of the commons explain this type of cooperation, both offline and online. This essay examines these two complementary approaches to organizing the cybercitizen for cybersecurity. Cybersecurity discourse has reasonably focused on centralized parties and network operators. From domain name registrars to network service providers, solutions are sought through incentives, regulation, and even law enforcement. However great the ability of these centralized entities to implement change, the end user plays a crucial role. The Internet must remain open to enable innovation and...

Abstract: The WikiLeaks affair and proposed copyright bills introduced in the Senate are evidence of a new, extralegal path of attack aimed at preventing access and disrupting the payment systems and adver- tising of targeted sites. In this model, the attacker may be a government agency seeking to circumvent constitutional constraints on its power or a private company trying to enforce its interests beyond those afforded by procedural or substantive safeguards in the law. The vector of attack runs through the tar- geted site's critical service providers, disrupting technical services, such as Domain Name System service, cloud storage, or search capabilities; and business-related services, such as payment systems or advertising. The characteristics that make this type of attack new are that it targets an entire site, rather than aiming for removal or exclusion of speci½c offending materials; operates through denial of business and ½nan- cial systems, in addition to targeting technical systems; and systematically harnesses extralegal pressure to achieve results beyond what law would provide or even permit.

Abstract: A growing literary arts movement is shaping discourses about youth and youth culture. With the historic election of President Obama serving as a departure point, this essay calls attention to poetry and the new race era to offer insights into the power of writing. For many youth who write in their own contexts or compete in the Brave New Voices Poetry Slam Festival, for example, such themes as voice, identity, citizenship, and leadership in the twenty-first century reveal how language is used to expose social realities often steeped in the margins. What do these themes suggest about the possibilities of poetry in a new race era? Indeed, what do they convey about inhabiting a new race era? Examples that tackle these themes are included in the essay.

Abstract: Women have voluntarily served to defend America since the birth of our nation, often driven by necessity or the fight for equal opportunity, but always limited by law or policy grounded in accepted gender roles and norms. Today, women compose 1 4 percent of the total active-duty military, and more than 255,000 have deployed to combat operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. Despite their exemplary service and performance in combat, women are still restricted from serving in more than 220, 000 military positions solely because of their sex. Women also continue to be exempt from the Selective Service System, for which their male counterparts are required by law to register. Are these continued inconsistencies between the sexes in the area of national defense incongruent with democratic tenets ? Have we gone too far or not far enough in allowing or compelling women to defend the nation if required ?

Abstract: Modern American racial politics remains sharply divided over racial policy issues, with coalitions of political activists, groups, and governing institutions aligned on opposing sides. A “color-blind” policy alliance urges government to act with as little regard to race as possible. A “race-conscious” alliance argues that policies should aim to reduce material racial inequalities and that race-targeted measures are often needed. These modern racial policy alliances are strongly identified with the two major parties; as a result, they contribute to modern political polarization. In a predominantly white electorate, color-blind policies are far more popular than race-conscious ones. President Barack Obama has responded by stressing goals of national unity and foregrounding color-blind policies, while quietly choosing among them on race-conscious grounds and adopting limited race-targeted measures. It remains to be seen whether his approach can succeed in reducing material racial inequalities or immunizing h...

Abstract: The achievement gap between blacks and whites owes nothing to genetics. It is not solely due to discrimination or social-class differences between blacks and whites. It is due in good part to environmental differences between blacks and whites stemming from family, neighborhood, and school socialization factors that are present even for middle-class blacks. The gap is closing slowly, but it could be closed much more rapidly, with interventions both large and small. Preschool programs exist that can produce enormous differences in outcomes in school and in later life. Elementary schools where children spend much more time in contact with the school, and which include upper-middle-class experiences such as visits to museums and dramatic productions, have a major impact on poor black children's academic achievement. Simply convincing black children that their intellectual skills are under their control can have a marked impact.

Abstract: (*See endnotes for complete contributor biographies.) In 1973, in the wake of the Vietnam War, the United States transitioned from a conscription-based military to an all-volunteer force (avf).1 Faced with new challenges of cost and recruitment, the military substantially reduced the size of its active forces, particularly the Army. Previously, the Selective Service System had made accessing the required number of entry-level military personnel relatively easy. The system drafted young men who frequently served simply to comply with the law and motivated others to volunteer for service to avoid being drafted. Once the draft ended, attracting the requisite number of quali1⁄2ed recruits each year became much more dif1⁄2cult. Now subject to the dynamics of the labor market, the military confronted competition from other employers, especially in times of low unemployment, and from institutions of higher education, as increasing numbers of young men and women attended college. Thus, the force had to be downsized. Except for brief periods during the twenty-1⁄2ve years of Cold War conscription, the Army was the

Abstract: Are racial disparities in the United States just as deep-rooted as they were before the 2008 presidential election, largely eliminated, or persistent but on the decline? One can easily find all of these pronouncements; rather than trying to adjudicate among them, this essay seeks to identify what is changing in the American racial order, what persists or is becoming even more entrenched, and what is likely to affect the balance between change and continuity. The authors focus on young American adults, who were raised in a distinctive racial context and who think about and practice race differently than their older counterparts. For many young Americans, racial attitudes are converging across groups and social networks are becoming more intertwined. Most important, although group-based hierarchy has not disappeared, race or ethnicity does less to predict a young adult's life chances than ever before in American history.

Abstract: After Barack Obama's historic election, media reports overwhelmingly credited white independents with setting aside decades of racially polarized voting to send the nation's first black president to the White House. Lee looks more closely to reveal that Obama owes a greater debt to non-white voters (partisan and nonpartisan) than to white independents. As more people of color – including immigrant and second-generation Latinos and Asian Americans – join the ranks of nonpartisan voters, the concept of pan-racialism can shed light on how individuals of a shared demographic category come to engage, politically, as a group. The age of Obama calls not for the celebration of a post-racial politics, but rather for a collective struggle to build a pan-racial politics: that is, a politics of mutual recognition, inclusion, and moral partiality between all racial and ethnic groups.

Abstract: This essay describes how the presidential campaign of Barack Obama reflected two tendencies of social conduct for African American men, colloquially summed up in African American public discourse as “keeping it real” and “keeping it proper.” The first refers to African Americans' efforts to behave in public settings in ways that presumably indicate a strong social connection to other African Americans, or that validate black Americans over and against some notion of a non-African American standard of social conduct. The latter refers to African Americans' efforts to adhere to presumably “mainstream” behavioral standards, whereby the humanity of black Americans is demonstrated and advanced. The essay explores how Obama exemplified both perspectives during his presidential campaign and discusses what implications his effort to balance these two, often diametrically opposed, tendencies has for forwarding new conceptions of African American masculinity.

Abstract: In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an official in the Johnson administration, published The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, better known as the Moynihan Report. He was influenced by his participation in two conferences organized by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the mid-1960s, as well as two issues of its journal Dceda-lus, on the topic of “The Negro American.” Arguing that the “damaged” family structure of African Americans would impede efforts to achieve full racial equality in the United States, the Moynihan Report launched an explosive debate that helped fracture a fragile liberal consensus on civil rights. Geary examines the report alongside the Dcedalus project, establishing its roots in the racial liberalism of the mid-1960s and connecting it to efforts by liberals to address the socioeconomic dimensions of racial inequality. He considers the close relationship between scholarship and public policy that existed at the time and reflects on the ways liberal ideas about r...

Abstract: © 2011 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences BRIAN MCALLISTER LINN is Professor of History and Ralph R. Thomas Professor in Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. His publications include Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Paci1⁄2c, 1902–1940 (1997) and The Philippine War, 1899–1902 (2000), both of which received the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award, and The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (2007). His current project is Elvis’s Army: Transformation and the Atomic-Era Soldier, 1946–1965. Despite the continual issuance of buzzwords emphasizing service unity and harmony–such as “jointness,” “An Army of One,” or “The Few, the Proud”–the armed forces’ internal divisions have been vividly displayed during the last decade. A number of important books detail the disagreements between civilian and military leaders and the long struggle to implement the “surge” and the counterinsurgency (coin) strategy.1 The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have generated a radical transformation in military thought: that is, a paradigm shift from idealized, techno-centric, scienti1⁄2c formulas–such as “network-centric warfare” (ncw) or “effects-based operations” (ebo)–to more complex, ambiguous, and human-centered visions of war, which were encapsulated in 2007 by The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.2 This intellectual renaissance has led, according to some, to military victory in Iraq and a path to eventual success in Afghanistan. This interpretation is attractive because it implies that the U.S. armed forces are adaptive, learning organizations that will develop new concepts to replace failed ones. But it begs a number of central ques-

Abstract: Safety in cyberspace continues to be an elusive objective. This essay explores various metaphors to aid thinking about the means by which safety might be increased. Notions such as cyber-fire-departments or cyber-police-departments as well as models drawn from public health scenarios are considered. The legal frameworks in which safety can be improved and international agreements adopted toward this end are briefly discussed. Users can also contribute to their own safety by adopting various practices that reduce vulnerability to cyber-infection and compromise.

Abstract: Using an August 2008 representative survey of Americans conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, we investigate the consequences of Internet-based political activity for long-standing patterns of participatory inequality. There is little evidence of change in the extent to which political participation is stratified by socioeconomic status, even when we account for the fact that the well educated and affluent are more likely to be Internet users. However, because young adults are much more likely than their elders to be comfortable with electronic technologies and to use the Internet, the Web has ameliorated the well-known participatory deficit among those who have recently joined the electorate. Still, among Internet users, the young are not especially politically active. How these trends play out in the future depends on what happens to the current Web-savvy younger generation and the cohorts that follow as well as on the rapidly developing political capacities of the Web.

Abstract: Although American society will not become race-blind anytime soon, the meaning of race is changing, and processes of racial formation now are quite different than those prevailing just two generations ago. Massey puts the present moment in historical perspective by reviewing progress toward racial equality through successive historical epochs, from the colonial era to the age of Obama. He ends by exploring the contours of racial formation in the United States today, outlining a program for a new civil rights movement in the twenty-first century.

Abstract: Nearly fifty years ago, the American Academy organized a conference and two issues of its journal "Daedalus" on the topic of "The Negro American." The project engaged top intellectuals and policy-makers around the conflicts and limitations of mid-1960s liberalism in dealing with race. Specifically, they grappled with the persistent question of how to integrate a forced-worker population that had been needed but that was socially undesirable once its original purpose no longer existed. Today, racism has been discredited as an idea and legally sanctioned segregation belongs to the past, yet the question the conference participants explored -- in essence, how to make the unwanted wanted -- still remains. Recent political developments and anticipated demographic shifts, however, have recast the terms of the debate. Gerald Early, guest editor for the present volume, uses Barack Obama's election to the presidency as a pretext for returning to the central question of "The Negro American" project and, in turn, asking how white liberalism will fare in the context of a growing minority population in the United States. Placing his observations alongside those made by John Hope Franklin in 1965, Early positions his essay, and this issue overall, as a meditation on how far we have come in America to reach "the age of Obama" and at the same time how far we have to go before we can overcome "the two worlds of race."