Abstract
The summer 2020 protests following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other African-Americans sparked important conversations about race, police brutality, and institutionalized racism in the United States. In response to widespread civil unrest, organizations across the country issued statements condemning anti-Black violence and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. This essay analyzes public statements released by 50 outdoor sport and recreation organizations. Extending scholarly literature on race and corporate social advocacy, our analysis develops the concept of conciliatory discourse, which functions by rhetorically constructing 1) a non-specification of grievance, 2) an obfuscation of commitments to action, and 3) a reinforcement of previous actions or processes. We argue that while many outdoor recreation organizations took action in support of racial justice, their public statements complicate long-term commitments for inclusivity and diversity.
Highlights
The summer 2020 protests following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other African-Americans sparked important conversations about race, police brutality, and institutionalized racism in the United States
We focused on the 50 public statements compiled by Outside Business Journal (2020), which kept a running list statements “condemning racial injustice and institutional violence against the Black community in the United States”
Our analysis highlights how organizations navigate the tricky dynamics of racial politics in the United States
Summary
The summer 2020 protests following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other African-Americans sparked important conversations about race, police brutality, and institutionalized racism in the United States. In March 2020, a Black woman named Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by Louisville police officers in the middle of the night as she lay sleeping in her apartment. In May 2020, a convenience store employee called the Minneapolis police on a Black man named George Floyd, alleging that he used a counterfeit $20 bill. Floyd died from the injuries he sustained, and in April 2021 Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder. The Black Lives Matter movement has drawn attention to these issues for years, the protests signaled an important turning point that forced white Americans to confront “the social power afforded by hegemonic White supremacy” Tens of thousands of Americans “swarmed the streets to express their outrage and sorrow” (Taylor, 2021, para. 2) in what became the largest sustained protest movement since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s
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