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

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.

Social Forces ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 403-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruud Wouters

AbstractHow do protest actions succeed in winning public support? In this paper, I theorize how features of protest can persuade citizens to support demonstrators. In particular, I argue that broadcasting an attractive collective identity by means of diverse, worthy, united, numerous and committed participants (dWUNC) triggers supportive reactions of observers through increasing identification with protesters. I test this argument by exposing respondents to manipulated television news items of a protest event in two video vignette experiments. Study 1 scrutinizes the effect of dWUNC displays in an asylum seeker demonstration on a sample of Belgian citizens. Study 2 replicates this design in the US for the Black Lives Matter issue of police brutality. Both studies show predispositions of citizens to strongly affect favorability towards protesters. On top of these potent receiver effects, however, also the dWUNC features prove persuasive. In both experiments, a consistent pattern of feature effects is found: demonstrations that mobilized more diverse participants, who behaved worthy and acted in unison, elicited more supportive reactions. Study 2 adds that these protest feature effects are in part mediated by increasing identification with the demonstrators. The heterogeneity of protest feature effects is explored.


Text Matters ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 93-117
Author(s):  
Debbie Olson

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Fletcher ◽  
Jennifer Hove

Abstract. Canada's military engagement in Afghanistan continues to figure highly in the public consciousness, spurring debate on perceived progress and the public's willingness to bear casualties. Despite the many political considerations at play, there is an emotional core to the issue that is often overlooked. In an earlier paper we found public support for the Afghanistan mission to depend in large part on emotive responses, although our analysis was restricted by the limited number of emotional indicators in the data (Fletcher et al., 2009). In this paper, we investigate a broader range of emotional influences on attitudes toward the mission through the use of field research on the Highway of Heroes and experimental framing of casualty-based imagery with student samples. Our findings reveal that Canadians' emotional responses to the repatriation of fallen soldiers reflect a distinctive composite of sadness and pride; the consequence of which is to undercut support for Canada's traditional peacekeeping role, a position negatively related to support for the Afghan mission. When compared with studies conducted in the US (Gartner, 2008a, 2011; and Huddy et al., 2007) our findings suggest some ways in which Canadians and Americans form distinct emotional communities (Rosenwein, 2006) in reactions to war.Résumé. L'engagement militaire du Canada en Afghanistan demeure un sujet important dans l'esprit du public en alimentant les nombreux débats entourant les progrès sur le terrain et l'acceptation des pertes militaires. Malgré les nombreux angles d'analyse utilisés pour investiguer ce sujet, il est rare que la dimension émotionnelle soit étudiée directement. Dans un article publié précédemment, nos résultats indiquèrent que l'appui populaire pour la mission canadienne en Afghanistan dépendait largement des réponses émotives associées à cette dernière (Fletcher, Bastedo et Hove, 2009). Toutefois, cette analyse se trouvait restreinte par le nombre limité d'indicateurs émotionnels disponibles. Cet article comble cette lacune en étudiant un ensemble élargi d'influences émotionnelles sur les attitudes envers la mission militaire afghane. Pour ce faire, nous avons effectué une recherche de terrain sur l'Autoroute des héros ainsi qu'une expérience en laboratoire sur un échantillon d'étudiants. Nos résultats révèlent que l'exposition à des images montrant des soldats canadiens tombés au combat provoque des réponses émotionnelles mêlant tristesse et fierté. L'effet de cette réaction serait d'affaiblir l'appui pour un rôle de maintien de la paix traditionnellement joué par le Canada et, par le fait même, de renforcer l'appui pour la mission afghane. Lorsque l'on compare nos résultats aux études effectuées à ce sujet aux États-Unis (Gartner, 2008a, 2011; and Huddy et al., 2007), nos conclusions suggèrent que les Canadiens et les Étatsuniens forment des communautés émotionnelles (Rosenwein, 2006) distinctes lorsqu'il est question de leurs réactions à la guerre.


2020 ◽  
pp. 70-96
Author(s):  
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

Chapter 3, “Theology, Religion, and Race: Constant Conversion and the Beginning of Vision,” considers the influence of theological concepts of race and the Church on O’Connor’s thinking about race and the application of current theological studies of racism to O’Connor’s work. This includes a review of the history of the Catholic Church’s attitudes toward race and segregation, especially in the South, discussion of the influence of the theological visions of William Lynch and Teilhard de Chardin on O’Connor’s thought, as well as consideration of theologian Brian Massingale’s and M. Shawn Copeland’s recent work on Catholic theological ethics and racial justice. The chapter also contains an analysis of “Revelation.”


2018 ◽  
Vol 82 (5) ◽  
pp. 388-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen A Donnelly

Three decades ago, the US Supreme Court declared in McCleskey v Kemp that legislatures, rather than courts, should redress statistically identified disparities in death sentencing. Racial justice efforts failed in Congress, but two states adopted measures that challenge inequalities in capital punishment. This article critically examines the development and impacts of the North Carolina and Kentucky Racial Justice Acts. Findings reveal two policy implications. The acts first actualised judicial wishes for elected officials and the public to address sentencing disparities. Secondly, the policies became distinct ‘super due process’ remedies that require defendants to show racial disparity as an error under specific procedures. Variation in the acts’ approaches to proof and causes of discrimination contributed to differential impact: the questioning of all death sentences within four years in North Carolina and minimal relief in Kentucky for two decades. Lessons are drawn for designing disparity reforms in criminal processing following judicial non-intervention.


2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Runions

In her recent book Precarious Life, Judith Butler points out that not more than ten days after 9/11, on 20 September 2001, George W. Bush urged the American people to put aside their grief; she suggests that such a refusal to mourn leads to a kind of national melancholia. Using psychoanalytic theory on melancholia, this article diagnoses causes and effects of such national melancholia. Further, it considers how a refusal to mourn in prophetic and apocalyptic texts and their interpretations operates within mainstream US American politics like the encrypted loss of the melancholic, thus creating the narcissism, guilt, and aggression that sustain the pervasive disavowal of loss in the contemporary moment. This article explore the ways in which the texts of Ezekiel, Micah, Revelation, and their interpreters exhibit the guilt and aggression of melancholia, in describing Israel as an unfaithful and wicked woman whose pain should not be mourned. These melancholic patterns are inherited by both by contemporary apocalyptic discourses and by the discourse of what Robert Bellah calls ‘American civil religion’, in which the US is the new Christian Israel; thus they help to position the public to accept and perpetuate the violence of war, and not to mourn it.


Author(s):  
Halyna Shchyhelska

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Ukrainian independence. OnJanuary 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People’s Republic proclaimed its independence by adopting the IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, although this significant event was «wiped out» from the public consciousness on the territory of Ukraine during the years of the Soviet totalitarian regime. At the same time, January 22 was a crucial event for the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA. This article examines how American Ukrainians interacted with the USA Government institutions regarding the celebration and recognition of the Ukrainian Independence day on January 22. The attention is focused on the activities of ethnic Ukrainians in the United States, directed at the organization of the special celebration of the Ukrainian Independence anniversaries in the US Congress and cities. Drawing from the diaspora press and Congressional Records, this article argues that many members of Congress participated in the observed celebration and expressed kind feelings to the Ukrainian people, recognised their fight for freedom, during the House of Representatives and Senate sessions. Several Congressmen submitted the resolutions in the US Congress urging the President of United States to designate January 22 as «Ukrainian lndependence Day». January 22 was proclaimed Ukrainian Day by the governors of fifteen States and mayors of many cities. Keywords: January 22, Ukrainian independence day, Ukrainian diaspora, USA, interaction, Congress


1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onker N. Basu

In accounting research, the role of organizational leaders has been underrepresented. The limited research dealing with leadership issues has focused on the impact of leadership on micro activities such as performance evaluation, budget satisfaction, and audit team performance. The impact of leadership on the structure of accounting and audit systems and organizations has been ignored. This paper focuses on the impact that past Comptrollers General have had on the working and structure of one federal audit agency, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO). In addition, it also focuses on the influence of the two most recent Comptrollers General on one important audit related activity, i.e., the audit report review process. Using qualitative field research methods, this paper documents how the organizational leadership impacts its long-term audit practices and thereby influences auditing, especially in the public sector.


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