“You Are a True Progressive”: Red Dead Redemption 2 and the Depiction and Reception of Progressive Era Politics

Since its release in October 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 has generated considerable controversy. Redemption 2, Rockstar Games’ highly popular video game set in a sprawling open world that resembles America’s southern and western states at the turn of the twentieth century, has attracted criticism from players who have disliked the perceived political messages the game presents. With numerous interactions with people of color, Native Americans, and feminist (suffragette) characters, the game prompts players to engage with the ongoing effects of colonialism, sexism, and racism, as well as the rising problems of an industrial and financial capitalist society. As such, the game’s depiction of Gilded Age and Progressive Era politics has resulted in a large amount of online criticism from a group of traditionally white, male, right-wing players. This article argues that Redemption 2 utilizes the Progressive Era as a vehicle to capture and speak to the current political climate, and that it is the game’s dual relationship with the past and the present that has aroused animosity from part of the game’s audience. Ultimately, it demonstrates how contemporary mainstream progressive politics can be interpreted within and projected upon the politics of the Progressive Era.

White Australia has a Blackie Blackie Brown history

The gatekeepers for institutions of fine arts, classical music and theatre in Australia are traditionally white, upper middle-class people. Nakkiah Lui’s existence and success as an Indigenous playwright is a radical disturbance in this bubble of society as, by nature, stories and storytellers that challenge cultural hegemony will always be political, and Blak artists entering theatre demonstrate a fusion and adaptation of Indigenous oral traditions into Australia’s highbrow society. Aboriginal playwrights and performances have a complex history in terms of audience reception as they often deal with difficult and confronting topics that ‘regular’ theatre audiences may not engage with (Grehan 2010). Not only do they have the burden of representing ‘all’ Aboriginal people, but the stories they share are often those whose voices were historically silenced, erased or dismissed (Morris 1992).

Transition from Tribal College to Four Year University

Native American college stuents face unusual and difficult transitions. This grounded theory study provides an exploration of the issues Native American students face in transferring from tribally controlled colleges to a traditionally white university. Using interview data, findings identified specific transitional phases, including Expectations and Apprehension, Acclimation, Reality, and Adjustment and Discouragement. Specific recommendations for further research are also offered.

Female Attorneys in South Africa: A Quantitative Analysis

Law is an established profession, traditionally white, male and middle-class. Since 1994, there has been a strong focus on transformation in the South African legal profession, largely focusing on racial transformation, with meaningful gender transformation lagging behind. This article illustrates at a quantitative level the gendered landscape of the South African attorney’s profession. The findings show that in the past decade there has been a steady increase in the number of female law graduates and the number of females admitted as attorneys. The occupational structure shows that the junior levels of the profession are dominated by females, and that there is a lack of diversity and transformation as regards the senior and most sought-after positions in the profession. Not only are female partners outnumbered, they are also significantly under-represented, with only half of them being represented at the partnership level, whereas males are over-represented at that level. South Africa has no shortage of laws and policies promoting gender equality and transformation. Unfortunately, these laws and policies have done very little to liberate female attorneys as they move through the ranks of the profession. The article concludes by raising questions that should be qualitatively explored in future research.

The Influence of Whiteness on the Group Socialization of Fraternity Men

This study was constructed as a qualitative analysis to understand how racial attitudes are socialized within members of traditionally White fraternities through a critical examination of participants’ narratives on race. Narratives from seven participants were presented to identify five subcategories which were divided into two major themes for analysis: (a) Regulatory Behavior and (b) the Role of Racially Segregated Environments in Perpetuating White Supremacy. This study used institutional theory as a theoretical framework to deconstruct the ways in which Whiteness is perpetuated in hegemonic White spaces.

Native American Religions in the Twentieth Century

This chapter discusses Native American religions in the twentieth century and major figures and themes including: the Pueblo Dance Controversy, the Indian New Deal, John Collier and the restructuring of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Native American Church, Native American Pentecostalism, the American Indian Movement, the work of Vine Deloria Jr., the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, issues surrounding sacred land, and the court case of Employment Division v. Smith. In recent years, the study of native religions shifted from being understood in white “Western” terms to something now studied from the native point of view. Scholarship has shifted toward privileging native understandings of sovereignty, political engagement, sexuality, space, land, time, and religious belief. Despite the fact that their religious freedoms were rarely protected, native peoples found new ways to defend against white encroachment on their sacred traditions and made their voices heard within traditionally white institutions of power.