Racist Antitrust, Antiracist Antitrust

If the tumultuous 2010s yielded one consistent theme, it is frustration with inequality coalescing into collective action. In response, progressive enforcers and commentators have begun to explore whether the antitrust laws—enacted in an attempt to counter concentrated power during a previous Gilded Age—might play a role in addressing systemic racialized inequality. This essay contributes to that ongoing conversation by historicizing a pair of antitrust cases: Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association. The first is an admirable example of antiracist antitrust. The second is its opposite. Together, these two decisions represent divergent paths. Which has the contemporary antitrust enterprise followed? The Supreme Court’s most recent substantive decision in the area, Ohio v. American Express, suggests both room for hope and reason for concern. The essay concludes by offering four recommendations for how antitrust can retake the high road. Antitrust can and should help to address—rather than exacerbate—structural inequality.

Deconstructing Racist Humor: How Archie Boston’s Advertisements Provoke Institutionalized Racism

Humor is one of the most used mediums for overcoming the dominant power in society. One type of humor, Black Humor, was initially used by the Black community to speak their voice regarding the racism they face every day. However, it showed that even the most powerful tool could also act as a double-edged sword for its users. In this research, we analyzed three advertisements made by Archie Boston circa the 1960s that took the symbolism of the Ku Klux Klan, Uncle Sam, and slavery and turned these symbolisms into objects of humor. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design, Barthes’ visual semiotics, and incongruity theory by Goldstein and McGhee, these advertisements were analyzed and then critically associated with the theory of Institutionalized Racism. The results revealed that these advertisements showed affiliation with how stereotypes are identified through symbolism by using humor and visual images. Therefore, these advertisements perpetuate negative stereotypes of the Black community by making Black people seem complicit in and supporting the racist acts that the symbols perpetuated.

Epilogue

The trouble started late on the evening of June 16, 1964, when members of the Ku Klux Klan set fire to a church outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Mount Zion Church was slated to host one of many new “freedom schools” across the state—grassroots institutions designed to empower and organize local black youth through an alternative curriculum focused on black history, civic education, and nonviolent resistance....

“Gray Eagle”/“Forked Deer”

This chapter discusses Taylor’s Kentucky Boys, “Grey Eagle” “Forked Deer”, stringband, old-time fiddling, racially mixed bands, Ku Klux Klan, and Gennett Records

“Henry Ford’s Model A”/“Married Life Blues”

This chapter discusses Oscar Ford, “Henry Ford’s Model A”, “Married Life Blues”, topical songs, Henry Ford, Ku Klux Klan