A White to Anti-Black Memory: Digital Space and Racist Commemoration
Topics: Black Geographies
, Feminist Geographies
, Digital Geographies
Keywords: anti-black memory, image, possessive, whiteness, misogynoir
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 61
Authors:
Khyree Davis, Middlebury College
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Abstract
In an attempt to respond to transnational demonstrations that erupted over the summer of 2020 over continued anti-black violence, many institutions began processes of removing sculptures and memorabilia read by many as racist in either practice or origin. This attempt at securing and safeguarding public images was also accompanied by a wave of digital support for the continued permanence of much of this racialized imagery. Social media became a space where mostly white spectators declared the emotional and psychological importance of protecting racist iconography as familiar and maintaining their access to them. Statues of confederate leaders and branded stereotypical representations of Black and Indigenous figures were standouts among the many things some social media users expressed desire to preserve. My critique examines a series of tweets that began on August 9th, 2021 in which mostly white social media users mourn the loss of Aunt Jemima branding and declare themselves “ungovernable” through their efforts at documenting the continued use of Aunt Jemima branded products in their households. By centering Patricia Hill Collins’ and Moya Bailey’s perspectives on Black feminisms and visual representations and using George Lipsitz’s theory of possessive investments in whiteness as a geopolitical understanding of white political/historical desire (Collins 1990, 2000, Bailey 2021; Lipsitz 1998, 2018), I aim to show how white commemoration of anti-black imagery reveals that the digital is as profound a space for the preservation of white supremacy even as it has been used as a space for resistance against and subversion of domination.
A White to Anti-Black Memory: Digital Space and Racist Commemoration
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
Description
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