Using Double Consciousness to Make Space for Muslim America
When a dream for democracy can open its eyes to the nightmarish realities of a demonized people, there may be a fighting chance for justice.
The Future is Another Country
When a dream for democracy can open its eyes to the nightmarish realities of a demonized people, there may be a fighting chance for justice.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but that’s not why we study it.
Whatever the demographic make-up of these groups of agitators, the overarching idea that communal protests and battles over white supremacy and race are anathema to Charlottesville could not be further from the truth.
While white supremacists seek confirmation of their personal racial inheritance, they are often confronted with what they regard as deeply discrediting information, such as mixed-race ancestry. This new type of genetic information creates what we call a genetic stigma—a significant gap between the person’s prior conception of themselves and the way others in the broader community perceive them.
Where do we find mainstream expression of white supremacy today? The answer emerges across the media and political landscape. One of the key markers of white supremacy is the anxiety of being replaced, pushed out in the new multicultural social order.
Racism and oppression, like domestic terrorism, have deep roots in the United States. As modern Americans confront a seemingly endless barrage of racial violence and terrorism, the language associated with these crimes serves as an important marker of national values and beliefs.
Removal without consideration of the historical context that led to their placement and the social wounds inflicted by white supremacy that are continually reopened in communities around the nation does nothing to resolve structural racism and heal those wounds.
The triumphalism in [nationalist] narrative[s] ignores the destructive nature of nationalism while also legitimizing it as a real and natural occurrence, despite the bulk of nationalist theory showing that it is far from that. By relying on this narrative, we may fail to see the danger present in new nationalist movements such as the recently emergent White Nationalism.
From the announcement of his candidacy in 2015 to his victory on election night a year later, many (particularly white liberals) viewed Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency with a sense of steadily growing disbelief.
In the December 5, 2016 issue of The Atlantic, journalist Emma Green wondered “Are Jews White?” This is a question that seems to be quite simple – very few people in the United States in 2017 would consider Jews to be members of a minority group, at least not anymore.