scholarly journals Toppled Monuments and Black Lives Matter: Race, Gender, and Decolonization in the Public Space. An Interview with Charmaine A. Nelson

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Christiana Abraham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper discusses the recent backlash against public monuments spurred by Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in North America and elsewhere following the killing by police of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man in the United States. Since this event, protestors have taken to the streets to bring attention to police brutality, systemic racism, and racial injustice faced by Black and Indigenous people and people of colour in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and some European countries. In many of these protests, outraged citizens have torn down, toppled, or defaced monuments of well-known historic figures associated with colonialism, slavery, racism, and imperialism. Protestors have been demanding the removal of statues and monuments that symbolize slavery, colonial power, and systemic and historical racism. What makes these monuments problematic and what drives these deliberate and spectacular acts of defiance against these omnipresent monuments? Featuring an interview with art historian Charmaine A. Nelson, this article explores the meanings of these forceful, decolonial articulations at this moment. The interview addresses some complex questions related to monumentalization and the public sphere, symbolism and racial in/justice. In so doing, it suggests that monuments of the future need to be reimagined and redefined contemporaneously with shifting social knowledge and generational change.

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 2018: A watershed year for psychedelic science

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 205032451987228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob S Aday ◽  
Christopher C Davoli ◽  
Emily K Bloesch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
The Status ◽  
Regulatory Bodies ◽  
The Public Sphere

While interest in the study of psychedelic drugs has increased over much of the last decade, in this article, we argue that 2018 marked the true turning point for the field. Substantive advances in the scientific, public, and regulatory communities in 2018 significantly elevated the status and long-term outlook of psychedelic science, particularly in the United States. Advances in the scientific community can be attributed to impactful research applications of psychedelics as well as acknowledgement in preeminent journals. In the public sphere, Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind was a commercial hit and spurred thought-provoking, positive media coverage on psychedelics. Unprecedented psychedelic ballot initiatives in the United States were representative of changes in public interest. Finally, regulatory bodies began to acknowledge psychedelic science in earnest in 2018, as evidenced by the designation of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to “breakthrough therapy” status for treatment-resistant depression by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In short, 2018 was a seminal year for psychedelic science.

Take it Outside

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Scheper Hughes ◽  
James Kyung-Jin Lee ◽  
Amanda Lucia ◽  
S.Romi Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
The Public Sphere

California is experiencing a proliferation of public religious celebrations like never before. The authors focus on four public celebrations: the throwing of colors during Holi, an annual pilgrimage to Manzanar, the Peruvian celebration of El Señor de Los Milagros, and Noche de Altares. Even as these and many other similar festivals simultaneously represent the irruption and interruption of the sacred in the public sphere, these festivals reflect the multi-religious character of immigration. These public rituals say something about the pursuit of belonging in California and in the United States within an increasingly diverse and multicultural landscape. Those who participate together as intimate strangers are often seeking only a temporary affiliation, perhaps a place for a moment to engage one another beyond the context of the marketplace. In sharing in these religious and cross-cultural experiences, participants become enmeshed in the complicated and vibrant diversity of California, up close and personal, as physical as the bodies encountered there.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Formal Schooling ◽  
The Public ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Impact

This epilogue comments on the changes within the Polish American community and the Polish-language press during the most recent decades, including the impact of the Internet and social media on the practice of letter-writing. It also poses questions about the legacy and memory of Paryski in Toledo, Ohio, and in Polonia scholarship. Paryski's life and career were based on his intelligence, determination, and energy. He believed that Poles in the United States, as in Poland, must benefit from education, and that education was not necessarily the same as formal schooling. Anybody could embark on the path to self-improvement if they read and wrote. Long before the Internet changed the way we communicate, Paryski and other ethnic editors effectively adopted and practiced the concept of debate within the public sphere in the media. Ameryka-Echo's “Corner for Everybody” was an embodiment of this concept and allowed all to express themselves in their own language and to write what was on their minds.

scholarly journals On Oblivion: the Case of Yugoslavian Monopoly

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Zala Pavšič
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Board Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Board Games

This article on the Yugoslavian version of the board game Monopoly is based on the assumption that things make people. In accordance with this a concept, the contribution begins with a historical overview of the development of this game in the United States, from its origins when it spreads around the country as a popular game, to the current day, when Monopoly is marketed a leading corporation in the field of board games, Hasbro. The popularity of the game is also evident from its presence in the public space in the form of metaphors: because of its emphasis on trading, it is sometimes referred to “greed”, and in the Balkans it can also serve as a metaphor for the nation state.In the memories of my interlocutors who helped me with their testimonies, the Yugoslav version of Monopoly is associated with pleasant memories: especially of childhood, youth and relatives or friends with whom they used to play the game. In my interviews I focused on two topics which did not play such a significant role in the testimonies of the interlocutors, but were, however, common in the testimonies of interviewees who got acquainted with the game as children: to the question of the supposed superiority of Slovenia, as Bled and Bohinj were the most expensive properties, and the presumption that Monopoly is a game which can reproduce cultural memory, in this case knowing the geography of the former common state. The thesis on Slovene superiority proved to rely on generations to which my interviewees belonged, since it appeared especially in the answers of the interlocutors who were born in the late 1980s. Hence, I assume that this thesis was more likely a projection of the outside reality of my interlocutors into the game than vice versa.Analysing the answers of my interlocutors more thoroughly, I reached the conclusion that Monopoly often appeared as the first reference through which they heard about a certain resort in the regions of the former Yugoslavia. This means that Monopoly contained traces of cultural memory which other sources of our everyday lives, education and upbringing ceased to transmit.

A Triad of Crisis Communication in the United States

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Eid ◽  
Jenna Bresolin Slade
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Change ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
White House ◽  
The Public ◽  
System Collapse ◽  
Right To Communicate ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right

The United States experienced a core-shaking tumble from their pedestal of superpower at the beginning of the 21st century, facing three intertwined crises which revealed a need for change: the financial system collapse, lack of proper healthcare and government turmoil, and growing impatience with the War on Terror. This paper explores the American governments’ and citizens’ use of social network sites (SNS), namely Facebook and YouTube, to conceptualize and debate about national crises, in order to bring about social change, a notion that is synonymous with societal improvement on a national level. Drawing on democratic theories of communication, the public sphere, and emerging scholarship on the Right to Communicate, this study reveals the advantageous nature of SNS for political means: from citizen to citizen, government to citizen, and citizen to government. Furthermore, SNS promote government transparency, and provide citizens with a forum to pose questions to the White House, exchange ideas, and generate goals and strategies necessary for social change. While it remains the government’s responsibility to promote such exchanges, the onus remains with citizens to extend their participation to active engagement outside of SNS if social change is to occur. The Obama Administration’s unique affinity to SNS usage is explored to extrapolate knowledge of SNS in a political context during times of crises.

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