Racial Violence Research Articles

(Audio)visual Artivist Research in Anti-Colonial and Anti-Racist Key

This article conceives of the University as a laboratory for the creation of anti-racist and anti-colonial practices through arts, communication, and education. It proposes the realization of (audio)visual artivist practices with an anti-colonial and anti-racist focus as the articulating axis of artistic creation experiences, art education, and educational research. It suggests the creation and exhibition of commented collages and short films of appropriation as instruments for individuals and groups to question colonialism and racism, both in the fields of audiovisual, visual, and sound culture, as well as in the field of their family, school, and cultural consumption formation; while promoting the re-existence of native and Afro-descendant identities, cultures, knowledge, and memories. It employs conceptual and methodological tools of critical pedagogy, visual anthropology, and film studies to describe how anti-“Indian” and anti-“Black” racism and the appreciation for cultural and physical whiteness can be reproduced and resisted. It recovers testimonies from situated processes of critical reflection on one’s personal and family history in relation to the reproduction of colonial and racist violence. It describes a methodological proposal to make (audio)visual artistic analysis and creation tools in the construction of knowledge and emotions for the social transformation of reality, and instruments to build a culture of peace, social justice, and historical memory.

Applying Symbolic Convergence Theory to Pre-service Teachers’ Responses to Mathematics Education Organizations’ Statements on Racial Violence

In June 2020, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) released statements regarding racism, racial violence, and mathematics teaching. Pre-service elementary teachers (PSTs) in a mathematics content course wrote reactions to the organizations’ statements. After using an emergent coding process to code the reactions for major themes, the authors used a theory from communication studies called symbolic convergence theory to analyze how closely the PSTs’ understanding of the statements aligned with the vision espoused by the organizations in the statements. PSTs largely understood the need to make their classrooms safe and supportive spaces; however, they struggled to connect anti-racist ideals specifically to mathematics teaching. The authors discuss potential ways NCTM and AMTE can address this disconnect.

Black Sound, Sonic Emotion, and Racist Violence in Lovecraft Country

This article addresses race and inequality through the horror sci-fi genre and the musical landscape of two episodes of Misha Green’s TV series Lovecraft Country (2020). Moral responsibilities are mediated throughout the series via sonic culture; through analysis of the series’ aurality, focus is on the sonic reimagining and resignifying of two episodes: Episode One (E1) “Sundown” and Episode Five (E5) “Strange Case.” The unique blend of sci-fi and Cthulhu Mythos adds an additional layer of horror when situated against the backdrop of the racial realities of African Americans in the 1950s and guides the viewer to experience the familiar horror trope by disrupting the ways we experience sound in TV viewing. The soundtrack produces and thematises different sonic emotions and the result is a 21st-century representation of the 1950s: one that reframes racial inequalities of the time for contemporary sensibilities, while actively using the past as raw material for a new present. In this analysis of historical injustices of Black culture through sonic emotion, this article provides a demonstration on how Lovecraft Country engages with race, gender, and sonic culture while embracing the rich tapestry of Black sound by disrupting narratives, challenging racial temporalities, and inviting change.

The Politicization of COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Racism in the United States: An Experimental Approach

AbstractThe deadly outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has accompanied a worldwide surge in anti-Asian hate crimes and racial violence. In this paper, I experimentally assess the downstream effects of the health crisis on the racial attitudes of the American public. Survey respondents were randomly assigned to different messages about COVID-19 and its association with China and answered a battery of racial attitude questions, including a new measure of anti-Asian racial resentment. Across all outcome measures, I find null effects for both treatment messages, which suggests that racialized views toward Asians may be stable individual-level dispositions that have shaped American responses to the pandemic. Findings from this study have important implications for research on the far-reaching societal and political consequences of the pandemic in the United States and beyond.

A letter to Baba

AbstractThis is a piece of creative non-fiction. The letter from a daughter to a father is an attempt to understand intergenerationally shared histories, experiences, and different orientations. It aims to imagine what decolonial thinking could look and feel like. Interdisciplinary in its orientation, the letter moves between personal stories and the broader scholarly quest to contemplate the embodied racialized violence of the current conjuncture. The letter suggests that embodied racialized violence is powerful and banal. It explores how it can be carried in the ties that bind – the love, minds, bodies, experiences, and stories of – a familial relationship and the people they encounter. It also represents an inversion of scholarly work in which the interactions that hone arguments are thinly noted in brief acknowledgements, and the citationary writing takes centre stage. Here, the interaction is central, and the citationary writing is laid out in footnotes.

Exposure to Workplace Violence and Related Factors among Nurses Working in Hospitals Affiliated with Golestan University of Medical Sciences

Background. Workplace violence in the healthcare system has become an important policymaking issue in recent years and is considered one of the most complex issues for the governmental system. Due to the lack of a similar study in Golestan province, this study was conducted to determine the level of exposure to workplace violence against nurses and the factors related to it. Methods. This cross-sectional study was conducted in hospitals affiliated with Golestan University of Medical Sciences in 2021 Where 293 nurses were included after random stratified sampling. The data collection tool was demographic and occupational variables as well as the workplace violence questionnaire and data analysis was done by descriptive statistics methods and Mann-Whitney, Spearman, Kruskal-Wallis, and Chi-square tests in SPSS-23 software at a significance level of 0.05. Results. The average age of the nurses participating in the study was 33.93 ± 7.16 years and their average work experience was 9.82 ± 6.32 years. Among the subjects, 82.6% were women and the rest were men. The prevalence of workplace violence was 86% in one year. Mental and physical violence with a frequency of 79.5% and 42.7%, respectively, had the highest occurrences. Also, 57.7% did not report any act of violence. In front of these acts of violence, the most reactions were inviting the attacker to calm down (42.3%), discussing the issue with colleagues (23.5%), and not taking any specific action (19.5%). There was a significant relationship between physical violence and gender (P-value=0.024) and department of hospital (P-value=0.003). Sexual violence was also significantly related to department of hospital (P-value=0.046). Also, there was a significant relationship between racial violence and gender (P-value=0.001), department of hospital (P-value=0.028), and work shift (P-value=0.005). Conclusion. According to the results, the prevalence of workplace violence was generally high in one year, but most of the nurses did not report any act of violence. Therefore, medical policymakers and hospital managers should consider improving nurses' communication skills, and security measures, training staff on anger management, and reducing nurses' workload.

Read, Make, and Mend the World: College Students Developing an Antiracist, Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Children

After the plurality of crises experienced in 2020, including but not limited to a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a national reckoning with racial violence, and political violence, one teacher and twelve college students set out to explore and create actively antiracist, self-nourishing pedagogies for elementary students. Using the theoretical approaches of bell hooks, Gholdy Muhammad, Corita Kent, and Gloria Ladson-Billings, the class chose to center the approach of making and crafting as the module to challenge and dismantle systems of oppression. This article charts their journey of using BIPOC-centered books, highlighting marginalized makers and artists, to craft and test curricula that goes beyond simply telling the artists' stories, but allows elementary students to be active participants in those stories through crafting. The class also explored how crafting can be a tool of expression, liberation, and learning. Reflecting on the theoretical underpinnings of their thoughts and the lessons they learned along the way, this article is a reflection on the class's experiences and suggestions for how to read, make, and mend the world.

Intergenerational differences on anti-blackness in the Indo-Caribbean community in New York City

ABSTRACT This study examines how anti-Black ideologies emerging from the Caribbean impact negotiations of race amongst Indo-Caribbeans in New York City by using thirty qualitative interviews with first-generation and second-generation Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Trinidadians. First, it highlights that global systems of anti-Blackness influence how Indo-Caribbeans experienced racialized violence in their home countries and navigate their racial identities in the US. It then reveals how the second generation negotiates anti-Blackness in divergent ways. Some second-generation Indo-Caribbeans uphold their families’ anti-Black sentiments by grappling with dating norms and maintaining racialized attitudes framed under colour-evasive racism. However, those in the second generation who have significant interactions in white spaces negotiate their attitudes about racism and Black people by seeking solidarity. Overall, this study finds that anti-Blackness can be rooted in legacies of white supremacy within immigrants’ home countries, but these sentiments can shift among the second generation as they navigate their processes of racialization.

At the Confluence of COVID-19 and Anti-Black Racial Violence: Exploring Independent Schools’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Practice

The COVID-19 pandemic and heightened awareness of police violence against Black Americans in 2020 reverberated throughout educational institutions including private, non-religious schools. This survey study (n=242) sought to understand the impact of these crises on independent schools’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leaders. Results indicate that while 45% of included schools had a robust DEI practice pre-2020, these crises created an environment of these competing crises. Many schools experienced reductions in resources and increasing resistance to DEI. Overall, pre-2020 robustness of a DEI practice did not predict school responses to the crises. Implications for DEI policy and leadership are discussed.

“Too Much to Hope”: Analyzing Clergy Rhetoric on White Supremacy

AbstractAs Du Bois observed a century ago, the White Church as an institution is largely associated with maintaining the status quo of racial stratification rather than offering a progressive force. To analyze the rhetoric of predominantly White clergy on race, I analyze a sample of sermons from predominantly White congregations in Charlottesville, VA following the 2017 White supremacist rally (N = 87 sermons from 38 congregations). I find that clergy draw on individualistic, other‐worldly, and structural frameworks to explain the causes of and solutions to racism and racial violence. These frameworks carry different consequences; individualistic explanations are associated with calls for self‐examination and prayer, while seeing racism as a battle between forces comes limited individual engagement. Further, these frameworks are overlapping within the sermons, clouding the appropriate responses to racial violence. As a whole, these responses largely affirm Du Bois’ low expectations for the White Church in combatting racism and inequality.

Social movements and political-emotional communities: an approach from the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Mexico

ABSTRACT How are social ties formed in the contentious campaigns led by relatives of victims of criminal and political violence? Drawing on the work of Latin American social anthropologists such as Myriam Jimeno, Morna Macleod and Natalia De Marinis, I argue that the contentious campaigns of a victim-led social movement provide the physical and symbolic spaces where the participants form a political-emotional community by sharing testimonios (testimonial narratives) and developing a victim-centered ethos. To substantiate my claim, I discuss the case of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad) in Mexico drawing on twelve in-depth interviews and a documentary review. This article opens a dialogue between the literature on political-emotional communities and the scholarship on social movements offering a new perspective to analyze the development of social ties. In other words, future research projects can make use of the introduced theoretical proposal to understand victim-led activism more in-depth. The approach of this article can be of interest, for example, for scholars dedicated to the study of contention by survivors of genocide, mobilizations against racial violence, and protests in contexts of armed conflict.

“There’s something wrong in society”: Teaching for racial civic literacy using young adult fiction

ABSTRACT This multiple case study traced how secondary preservice social studies teachers grappled with understanding race/racism in their reading of the novel, All American Boys. Participants, all self-identified as white, consisted of two cohorts of students who attended a large midwestern university and were enrolled in an advanced social studies methods course. Drawing on notions of racial civic literacy, we analyzed participants’ responses to the novel, especially as it related to the police officer character who committed racial violence on an unarmed Black youth. We asked whether the officer’s actions were racist. Findings showed that participants reacted to the officer’s actions in three ways: calling-out race/ism, justifying his actions, and distancing from making judgments. Participants who called out Officer Galluzzo’s actions as racism saw this character as symbolic of larger systemic issues in society, whereas those who sought to justify Galluzzo’s actions demonstrated faith in public institutions, such as policing and the court system. Finally, those who distanced themselves claimed to be in a space of neutrality. Results of the study suggest that faith in public institutions, often considered a hallmark of the civic mission of schooling, may be at odds with fostering racial civic literacy.

III. Rethinking Feminist Theologies of Sin in Light of White Women's Racist Violence

In 1960, Valerie Saiving published a groundbreaking essay, “The Human Situation: a Feminine View,” in which she pointed to the failures of classical sin-talk to account for the ways that women sin. As an early work of feminist theology, the article pointed to the androcentrism of theology: classical notions of sin were rooted in the failures and temptations of men. It also set the stage for feminist treatment of sin going forward. For Saiving, it was theologically inaccurate to identify women's experience of sinfulness with pride and will-to-power. Instead, she argues, the “feminine forms of sin … are better suggested by such items as triviality, distractibility, and diffuseness … in short, underdevelopment or negation of the self.”

Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston

Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston

Black Lives, White Witnesses: An Argument for a Presentist Approach to Teaching Aphra Behn's Oroonoko

This essay outlines a presentist approach to teaching Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688), in which a white woman witnesses a Black man’s brutal execution at the hands of enslavers. This approach explores the capacity of Behn’s novel—a colonialist narrative scholars frequently identify as troubling or frustrating—to generate discussions about “white witnessing,” particularly white people’s consumption of images of Black people in peril. This includes recent videos of Black people killed by police or white citizen vigilantes. Many Black individuals identify these videos as traumatizing, frequently noting how they have failed to spur structural reform. Of central concern in the classroom discussion described in the essay is the sympathy white witnesses experience in response to images of racist violence, a feeling that can bring reassurance—even pleasure—to the white witness but that in and of itself does little, if anything, to address the systemic causes of such violence and may actually serve to sustain them. In addition to considering how instructors can draw upon this novel from the past to generate discussions about critical issues of the present, the essay describes how they might place Oroonoko in conversation with texts from diverse periods, places, and genres in order to expose the limitations of and fill the gaps in Behn’s narrative.

Whiteness and the Affective Economy of Happy Antiracism inNative SonandMeridian

This article explores how antiracism cultivates happiness among white subjects and how that emotion alienates people of color. It argues that a cohort of twentieth-century African American writers critiqued this happy antiracism in their fiction, examining Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) and Alice Walker’s Meridian (1976) as two representative examples. Both novels portray what Sara Ahmed calls an “affective economy,” specifically the unequal affective economy produced by antiracism’s circulation as a cultural object. Wright considers how antiracism occasions happiness in white subjects by bolstering their sense of their own virtue, and how this happiness alienates African Americans, for whom antiracism is embedded in the experience of ongoing racial violence. Writing in the heyday of second-wave feminism, Walker examines how, even as antiracism shores up happy feeling, it can also compromise the agency of white women, whose activism is mediated by the persistence of nineteenth-century ideals of sentimentalism and domesticity.

Forever is Now by Mariama J. Lockington

Reviewed by: Forever is Now by Mariama J. Lockington Natalie Berglind Lockington, Mariama J. Forever is Now. Farrar, 2023 [416p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780374388881 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780374388898 $11.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 7-12 After Sadie witnesses an incident of police brutality, her generalized anxiety disorder increases to a point where she is unable to even leave the house. Other than her outlets of boxing and writing poetry, Sadie finds solace in therapy, where she’s diagnosed with agoraphobia. Journaling via livestreaming on an activist version of TikTok called Ruckus also helps, and she’s able to find other Black kids who struggle with their mental health. Still, Sadie continues to feel like she’s letting down those she loves, and as the Oakland, California, community organizes protests on behalf of the woman who was arrested, Sadie yearns to contribute, if only she can bring herself to do so. This novel-in-verse depicts a range of relevant struggles for Black girls: Sadie is painfully aware of a world that is both physically dying and politically corrupt, and she’s furious that her generation is expected to save it even as the threat of racial violence means she could be the next person whose name gets chanted at protests. Notably, Lockington equally emphasizes Sadie’s cherishing of sources of Black joy, especially through Sadie’s best friend and a cute boy who moves in across the street. Sadie is a character readers will root for as she overcomes her first heartbreak, advances with her therapy enough to attend the protest march, and finds her voice: “I am a sad, anxious Black girl./ And all I have are these fists,/ telling [End Page 331] a fury tale.” An author’s note explains that Black women’s mental health often goes untreated, and it also provides a list of resources for Black and queer kids to find therapy and adults who can help. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Designing the memory of terror, negotiating national memory: The National September 11 Memorial and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice

This essay analyzes two American memorials that were built in the post-9/11 era: the National September 11 Memorial in New York City, which opened in 2011, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2018. Both of these memorials pay tribute to victims of terrorism, the first to victims of foreign terrorism and the second to victims of lynchings, a form of racial terrorism within the United States. This essay argues that these two memorials define the beginning and end of the post-9/11 era, from memorialization as a nationalist enterprise to memorialization as a reckoning on race that demands the destruction of racist monuments and the construction of memorials to victims of racist violence. It looks in particular at how the modern designs of these two memorials produce very different kinds of experiences of memory to tell distinct narratives of victimhood, loss, and nation.

Towards anti-racist policies and strategies to reduce poor health outcomes in racialised communities: introducing the O'Neill–Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, and Global Health

Audre Lorde said, “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” 1 Lorde A Sister outsider: essays and speeches. Crossing Press, Trumansburg, NY1984 Google Scholar The O'Neill–Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, and Global Health posits racism as one of the most consequential transnational phenomena to impact the health and lives of afflicted communities globally. This Commission aims to explore the axis of discrimination across structural determinants of health at intranational, international, and supranational levels and our objectives are shown in the panel. There is ample evidence of racism among health-care-provider behaviour in many contexts and as the cause of physical injury due to racial violence. 2 Batur P Heart of violence: global racism, war, and genocide. in: Vera H Feagin JR Handbook of the sociology of racial and ethnic relations. Springer, Boston, MA2007: 441-454 Crossref Scopus (3) Google Scholar , 3 Ben J Cormack D Harris R Paradies Y Racism and health service utilisation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2017; 12: e0189900 Crossref PubMed Scopus (160) Google Scholar , 4 Paradies Y Ben J Denson N et al. Racism as a determinant of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2015; 10: e0138511 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1145) Google Scholar Further, the Lancet Series on racism, xenophobia, discrimination, and health 5 Devakumar D Selvarajah S Abubakar I et al. Racism, xenophobia, discrimination, and the determination of health. Lancet. 2022; 400: 2097-2108 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (6) Google Scholar joined earlier scholarship to characterise pathways of discrimination in health systems and other structures. The Commission will deepen the existing scholarship and explore racism and discrimination within global public health practice, policies, governance, and legal systems that are determinants of racial and ethnic health disparities. PanelObjectives of the O'Neill–Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, and Global HealthAccurately diagnose the problem of racism in health This will be achieved by reviewing existing national and cross-national evidence on racism in health in a global context, and using a set of empirical analytical work, to further describe the effects of racial and ethnic discrimination and its intersections on health at a national and international level. Identify best practices and actionable anti-racist strategies The Commission will achieve this goal by, among other activities, holding consultations with populations with lived experiences of structural discrimination in health, to discover how racist structures in select countries were addressed to close health equity gaps. Compile a report of the Commission's findings, highlighting the strategies, tactics, and actionable lessons We expect the Commission's recommendations to be used to develop anti-racist approaches in the sphere of health policy and service delivery to ensure equitable and just health outcomes. Widely disseminate the Commission's findings Broad dissemination will ensure that the anti-racist strategies and actionable lessons can be used by governments and health advocates to lobby for improved health outcomes for marginalised sections of the population in their respective countries and contribute a body of global knowledge to augment efforts to decolonise global health. Accurately diagnose the problem of racism in health This will be achieved by reviewing existing national and cross-national evidence on racism in health in a global context, and using a set of empirical analytical work, to further describe the effects of racial and ethnic discrimination and its intersections on health at a national and international level. Identify best practices and actionable anti-racist strategies The Commission will achieve this goal by, among other activities, holding consultations with populations with lived experiences of structural discrimination in health, to discover how racist structures in select countries were addressed to close health equity gaps. Compile a report of the Commission's findings, highlighting the strategies, tactics, and actionable lessons We expect the Commission's recommendations to be used to develop anti-racist approaches in the sphere of health policy and service delivery to ensure equitable and just health outcomes. Widely disseminate the Commission's findings Broad dissemination will ensure that the anti-racist strategies and actionable lessons can be used by governments and health advocates to lobby for improved health outcomes for marginalised sections of the population in their respective countries and contribute a body of global knowledge to augment efforts to decolonise global health.

BIPOC Experiences of Racial Trauma on TikTok: A Qualitative Content Analysis.

Racial trauma has long been an issue in American society. Recent incidents of racial violence, including the attack and murder of George Floyd and the rise of anti-Asian hate have garnered significant media attention. People often use social media to express their emotions and perspectives on national events, and it has become a popular forum for posting and commenting on content related to timely social issues. In effort to understand individual perspectives, and experiences of racial trauma discussed on social media, we analyzed content labeled with the hashtag "racial trauma" on TikTok during significant racial incidents from March 2020 to May 2022. Results of content analysis showed six themes, (1) encountering racism, (2) traumatic experiences, (3) consequences of experiencing racial trauma, (4) expressing difficult feelings, (5) questioning and challenging oppression, denial, and privilege, and (6) a call to action: raising awareness. Findings inform clinicians' understanding of how their clients experience racial trauma. Clinical implications for incorporating a nuanced understanding of racial trauma in mental health treatment are discussed.