scholarly journals Cowboy Cops and Black Lives Matter: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and the Great White West[ern]

Text Matters ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 93-117
Author(s):  
Debbie Olson
Keyword(s):  
Screen Time ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Rural America ◽  
Frontier Myth ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Cultural Myths ◽  
Black Characters ◽  
The Us

The racial framework of Martin McDonagh’s 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri rests at the intersection of three persistent cultural myths—the Frontier Myth, the hero cowboy myth and the myth of white supremacy. There has been much criticism of the portrayal of black characters in the film, and particularly the lack of significant black characters in a film that sports a solid undercurrent of racial politics. While the black characters in the film occupy a small amount of screen time, this paper argues that the film’s treatment of black characters, including their absence, puts on display the cultural dysfunction of racial politics in the US, especially in rural America, and particularly in Missouri. The film’s subversion of the cowboy hero instead reveals the disturbing reality of the Frontier Myth and its dependence on racism and white supremacy for validation. In its unmasking of myth, Three Billboards challenges the illusion of a glorious Western past that never existed and at the same time supports racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

scholarly journals Black Lives Matter and Catholic Whiteness: A Tale of Two Performances

Horizons ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Jaycox
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Collective Agency ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The Us ◽  
Moral Critique ◽  
Catholic Theological

The Black Lives Matter movement has received little scholarly attention from Catholic theologians and ethicists, despite the fact that it is the most conspicuous and publicly influential racial justice movement to be found in the US context in decades. The author argues on the basis of recent field research that this movement is most adequately understood from a theological ethics standpoint through a performativity lens, as a form of quasi-liturgical participation that constructs collective identity and sustains collective agency. The author draws upon ethnographic methods in order to demonstrate that the public moral critique of the movement is embedded in four interlocking narratives, and to interrogate the Catholic theological discipline itself as an object of this moral critique in light of its own performative habituation to whiteness.

Theorising anti-racism in health and social care

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esme Choonara
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
The Us ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Different Levels

The emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 in the context of a COVID-19 pandemic that was already disproportionally impacting on the lives of people from black, Asian and other minority ethnicities in the UK and the US has provoked scrutiny of how racism impacts on all areas of our lives. This article will examine some competing theories of racism, and ask what theoretical tools we need to successfully confront racism in health and social care. In particular, it will scrutinise the different levels at which racism operates – individual, institutional and structural – and ask how these are related. Furthermore, it will argue against theories that see racism as a product of whiteness per se or ‘white supremacy’, insisting instead that racism should be understood as firmly bound to the functioning and perpetuation of capitalism.

scholarly journals Erratum to Saunders, Skyler. "Unlocked Minds: August Wilson’s Suspects, Ex-Cons, or Soon-to-Be Convicted Characters in his American Century Cycle." August Wilson Journal [Online], 2(2020): doi https://doi.org/10.5195/awj.2020.55

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
August Wilson Journal Editors
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Journal Online ◽  
August Wilson ◽  
American Century ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Black Person ◽  
The Us

The article Saunders, Skyler. "Unlocked Minds: August Wilson’s Suspects, Ex-Cons, or Soon-to-Be Convicted Characters in his American Century Cycle." August Wilson Journal [Online], 2 (2020): https://doi.org.10.5195/awj.2020.55 contained several errors in the original publication. The original version has been updated to reflect the following changes: On page 1, the following sentence has been removed: “Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.” The Black Lives Matter group is not about individual rights but is run by Marxists. The error was introduced by the editorial board. On page 3, the following section has been removed: “As of this writing, Blacks make up about 2.3 million of the 6.8 million or about 34% of incarcerated individuals, according to the NAACP. Former president of this organization Benjamin Jealous said, “Our country has five percent of the world's people and 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Now, you can flip that a different way, a Black person today in this country is more likely to be incarcerated than a Black person in South Africa at the height of apartheid” (NAACP)”. There are in fact not 6.8 million incarcerated people in the US. There are actually 2.3 million people behind bars. The error was introduced by the author.

Dismantling White Privilege: The Black Lives Matter Movement and Environmental Justice in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Teelucksingh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Jim Crow Era

On August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, alt-right/White supremacy groups and Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporters came face-to-face regarding what to do about public monuments that celebrate key figures from slavery and the Jim Crow era. White supremacists and White nationalists did not hide their racist ideologies as they demanded that their privileged place in history not be erased. The BLM movement, which challenges state-sanctioned anti-Black racism, was ready to confront themes of White discontent and reverse racism, critiques of political correctness, and the assumption that racialized people should know their place and be content to be the subordinate other.It is easy to frame the events in Charlottesville as indicative of US-specific race problems. However, a sense that White spaces should prevail and an ongoing history of anti-Black racism are not unique to the United States. The rise of Canadian activism under the BLM banner also signals a movement to change Canadian forms of institutional racism in policing, education, and the labor market. This article responds to perceptions that the BLM movement has given insufficient attention to environmental concerns (Pellow 2016; Halpern 2017). Drawing on critical race theory as a conceptual tool, this article focuses on the Canadian context as part of the author’s argument in favor of greater collaboration between BLM and the environmental justice (EJ) movement in Canada. This article also engages with the common stereotype that Blacks in Canada have it better than Blacks in the United States.

scholarly journals Measuring Historical Urban Neighborhood Sustainability: America’s Grand Avenues

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1358
Author(s):  
Michael R. Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Kansas City ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Urban Neighborhood ◽  
Industrial Cities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Education Medical ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Us Cities

From 1850 through approximately 1920, wealthy entrepreneurs and elected officials created “grand avenues” lined by mansions in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, and other developing US cities. This paper examines the birthplaces of grand avenues to determine whether they have remained sustainable as magnets for healthy and wealthy people. Using data from the US EPA’s EJSCREEN system and the CDC’s 500 cities study across 11 cities, the research finds that almost every place where a grand avenue began has healthier and wealthier people than their host cities. Ward Parkway in Kansas City and New York’s Fifth Avenue have continued to be grand. Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., Richmond’s Monument Avenue, St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, and Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard are national and regional symbols of political power, culture and entertainment, leading to sustainable urban grand avenues, albeit several are challenged by their identification with white supremacy. Among Midwest industrial cities, Chicago’s Prairie Avenue birthplace has been the most successful, whereas the grand avenues of St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo have struggled, trying to use higher education, medical care, and entertainment to try to rebirth their once pre-eminent roles in their cities.

The Black Lives Matter movement: A call to action: Acts 10:11–16, 25–28, 34–35

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Alfred Smith
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Black Christians ◽  
American Society ◽  
Justice Movements

The Black Lives Matter movement is one of the most dynamic social justice movements currently emerging in the USA. This movement led by young Blacks unapologetically calls out the shameful, historical legacy of American racism and White supremacy while asserting the humanity and sacredness of Black lives, particularly those of unarmed persons senselessly murdered by police officers. While Black Lives Matter is a new movement, it is also an extension of the 400-year struggle of Black people in America to affirm Black dignity, equality, and human rights, even while the major institutions of American society have propagated doctrines and enforced unjust rules/laws to denigrate Black life. Black Christians have found hope and inspiration from the Gospel to claim their humanity and to struggle to gain justice for Black lives and for the lives of all oppressed people. In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement provides a helpful critique of many Black churches, challenging them to confront their biases, which label young Black males as “thugs” (the new N-word) and which cruelly demonize the LGBTQ community. The story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 provides a scriptural basis for Christian introspection and responses to God’s vision for beloved community, and for the call to action from the Black Lives Matter movement.

scholarly journals The Negro Digest: Race, Exceptionalism and the Second World War

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICHOLAS GRANT
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Second World

This article examines the border-crossing journalism of the Negro Digest, a leading African American periodical, published from 1942 to 1951. The first title produced by the Johnson Publishing Company, the Digest had an international focus that connected Jim Crow to racial oppression around the world. However, while the magazine challenged white supremacy on a local and global level, its patriotic tone and faith in American democracy occasionally restricted its global analysis of racism. Ultimately, the internationalism of the Negro Digest was quintessentially American – wedded to the exceptional status of American freedom and an overriding belief that the US could change the world for the better.

scholarly journals Bicycling, Birding and #BLM across America in a Summer of Chaos

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Edwards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Rural America ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
White Violence

From 6 June to 20 August, 2020, I undertook a 76-day, ~3800 mile bicycle trip across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. In this talk I will share with you some of the amazing people, landscapes and birds I encountered, mostly in rural towns and along blue highways. The gradually changing birdscape, both in sight and sound, underscored the sensitive ecological gradients to which birds respond, as well as the ability of some species to thrive in agricultural monocultures. Rivers large and small regularly benchmarked my progress, as well as the western journey of Lewis & Clark over 200 years ago. The recent incidents in the US involving African Americans as targets of white violence inexorably caused me to festoon my bicycle with #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) signs and share my experiences on social media. I encountered a variety of reactions, often positive and occasionally sharply negative, in a sea of generosity and extraordinary kindness as I wheeled my way through towns on the brink of collapse, vast private ranches and the occasional city. Rural America exhibits an abundance of loyalty and empathy for local communities, yet it is sometimes hard for Americans – myself included – to empathize with people they have never met in person. Two imperatives I took away, with ramifications for both biodiversity and political stability, were the need to somehow bring divergent communities together and to encourage empathy at the national level, among communities that otherwise experience each other only on TV.

‘This is not who we are’: Gendered bordering practices, ontological insecurity, and lines of continuity under the Trump presidency

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Christine Agius
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Immigrant Children ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
The Us ◽  
Democratic Nation ◽  
Gender Lens ◽  
Policies And Practices

Abstract The Trump presidency ushered in a heightened sense of ontological insecurity in the US, based on a national self-narrative that portrayed an emasculated America. Trump promised a return the US to primacy by pursuing policies and practices that focused on border protection, militarisation, and the vilification of external others, while amplifying racial tensions within the country. From caging immigrant children at the border, to an enabling of white supremacy and the Capitol riots, Trump's presidency was broadly seen as aberration in the self-narrative of America as a tolerant, democratic nation. In this article, I am interested in how gendered bordering practices inform ontological (in)security in Trump's narrative of the nation, domestic and external policy, and discourses. While Trump's electoral loss to Biden in 2020 has been described as a ‘return to normal’, this article instead considers how Trump's presidency exhibited lines of continuity when examined through a gender lens. Understanding how masculinism informs ideas of ontological security reveals how notions of gendered bordering, hierarchy, and ordering have been persistent threads in US politics, rather than simply an anomaly under Trump. This suggests greater potential to read ontological security in more complex terms through gendered bordering practices.

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