tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/black-lives-matter-14463/articlesBlack Lives Matter – The Conversation2024-03-14T12:42:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244962024-03-14T12:42:05Z2024-03-14T12:42:05ZEmployees have a right to express support for Black Lives Matter while they’re on the job, according to a historic labor board decision<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581413/original/file-20240312-24-pix1iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=149%2C183%2C4387%2C2788&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The aftershocks of George Floyd's death are still reverberating for Home Depot.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mourners-in-home-depot-aprons-wait-to-view-the-casket-of-news-photo/1218632854?adppopup=true">Godofredo A. Vásquez-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-employees-black-lives-matter-action-at-home-depot-was">Home Depot store violated labor law</a> when it disciplined Antonio Morales, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Feb. 21, 2024.</p>
<p>Morales, a Home Depot employee in the Minneapolis area, had drawn the letters BLM on a work apron and refused to remove them. BLM stands for the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0016241/">Black Lives Matter movement</a>, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism aimed at Black people. Morales ultimately quit because of pressure to end the use of BLM messaging.</p>
<p>The NLRB has now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/business/home-depot-blm-nlrb-ruling.html">ordered Home Depot to rehire Morales</a> based on the legal right U.S. employees have to engage in “<a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/employee-rights">concerted activity</a>” for the purpose of “mutual aid or protection.”</p>
<p>As a legal scholar who has <a href="https://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/find-people/faculty-profiles/michael-z-green">studied issues of race in the workplace</a> for more than 20 years, I believe the Home Depot decision establishes an important precedent for workers who express broad concerns about systemic racism.</p>
<p>This decision indicates that employees have a right to demonstrate their support for the Black Lives Matter movement on the job if they are seeking to improve their own working conditions with respect to racial discrimination. And this right persists even if the messaging arguably has political connotations that some workers or customers might disagree with. </p>
<h2>Right to display slogans</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are">National Labor Relations Board</a> is the federal agency that conducts elections when employees seek to be represented by a union. It also prosecutes and adjudicates complaints filed against employers and unions based upon unfair labor practices as defined by the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations Act</a>. </p>
<p>Workers have the right to display slogans related to working conditions when they’re on the job under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/157">Section 7 of that law</a>, which was enacted in 1935. Section 7 “protects the rights of employees to wear and distribute items such as buttons, pins, stickers, t-shirts, flyers, or other items displaying a message relating to terms and conditions of employment, unionization, and other protected matters.”</p>
<p>In this <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d4583c6ebac">Home Depot case</a>, the NLRB reviewed a preliminary decision issued in 2022 by <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45837af63d">Paul Bogas</a>, an NLRB administrative law judge. Bogas found that Home Depot’s ban on manifestations of support for the Black Lives Matter movement didn’t violate labor law.</p>
<p>The NLRB disagreed with the decision by Bogas in a 3-1 decision that cited a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1977/77-453">1978 Supreme Court precedent</a>.</p>
<p>In that case, Eastex Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, the court found that workers distributing materials related to their terms and conditions of employment are protected by Section 7 when there is a reasonable and direct connection to the advancement of mutual aid and protection in the workplace.</p>
<p>That ruling held that this protection exists even when political messages may be involved in the workers’ communications. “Moreover, what may be viewed as political in one context can be viewed quite differently in another,” the Supreme Court held.</p>
<p>At the Home Depot in question, Morales and other employees had previously discussed concerns about racial misconduct by a supervisor and two separate incidents of destroying a display of Black History Month materials the workers had created to celebrate Black culture.</p>
<p>Employees had a right to express their support for BLM messaging in the workplace because they had already objected to working conditions based upon racial concerns, the NLRB’s majority ruled.</p>
<p>One of the NLRB’s four members, <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/bio/marvin-e-kaplan">Marvin Kaplan</a>, <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3135/Board_Decision-HOME_DEPOT_USA.pdf?1710272577">dissented, in part, from the majority</a> based on his different view about the purpose of Morales’ display of the BLM messaging. Morales was expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement’s “goal of combating police violence against Black individuals – not with improving terms and conditions of employment,” Kaplan wrote.</p>
<h2>Discussing racial justice at work</h2>
<p>Morales’ show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the workplace was hardly an outlier.</p>
<p>Many Black Americans began to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/17/george-floyd-protests-black-lives-matter-employees-corporate-america-racism/3195685001/">speak out about racism and discrimination</a> by discussing BLM in their workplaces amid the widespread protests that followed <a href="https://theconversation.com/pain-of-police-killings-ripples-outward-to-traumatize-black-people-and-communities-across-us-159624">George Floyd’s murder by police officers on May 25, 2020</a>, in Minneapolis.</p>
<p>A year after Floyd was killed, a poll found that 68% of Americans thought that employees “<a href="https://www.paradigmiq.com/blog/nearly-7-in-10-americans-think-racial-injustice-is-problem-and-believe-they-should-be-able-to-talk-about-it-at-work/">should be able to discuss racial justice issues at work</a>.”</p>
<p>Employees who wanted to show their support for BLM at work have in recent years met resistance from other employers besides Home Depot, <a href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/diversity-inclusion-grocery/627933/">including the Publix</a> and <a href="https://www.kuow.org/stories/grocery-store-workers-union-wins-case-for-black-lives-matter-buttons">Fred Meyer supermarket chains</a>.</p>
<p>Some companies have said their bans on workers displaying BLM insignia were intended to <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/black-lives-matter-logos-in-the-workplace-divide-employers-workers-and-customers/">prevent disruptive responses</a> by other workers and customers who may not agree with the movement’s message. </p>
<h2>Mixed decisions</h2>
<p>Legal decisions about this issue have been mixed so far.</p>
<p>A court found that <a href="https://casetext.com/case/amalgamated-transit-union-local-85-v-port-auth-of-allegheny-cnty-2">a Pennsylvania government agency violated the First Amendment</a> when it prohibited workers from wearing face masks emblazoned with BLM messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/business/whole-foods-black-lives-matter.html">Whole Foods has prevailed against workers</a> in similar cases. An <a href="https://www.aseonline.org/News-Events/ASE-News/Press-Releases/nlrb-board-overrules-its-administrative-judges-to-hold-in-favor-of-over-riding-dress-rules-for-worker-blm-wear">NLRB administrative law judge</a> found that its employees had worn BLM insignia merely as a political statement <a href="https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/employment-law-compliance/court-dismisses-claims-whole-foods-black-lives-matter-masks">unrelated to their working conditions</a>.</p>
<p>That preliminary decision is now in question after the NLRB’s final ruling about the same issue in the Home Depot dispute.</p>
<p>Whole Foods workers asserted in a separate legal challenge that their employer’s ban on wearing BLM insignia <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/appeals-court-rejects-whole-foods-workers-discrimination-claim-dress-code-crackdown-blm-protests">represented racial discrimination under federal law</a>. In that case, the court found that the employees had failed to prove that the ban had a racial motivation.</p>
<p>Whole Foods was instead seeking to stop expression of a “politically charged” and “controversial message by employees in its stores,” according to the court.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People stand in front of a Whole Foods with painted signs depicting a woman in a Black Lives Matter face mask and another one with a Black person's face without a mask." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Whole Foods employees who were dismissed from their shift for wearing Black Lives Matter face masks conduct a protest in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/adam-hermon-left-and-abdulai-barry-stand-in-front-of-whole-news-photo/1227707669?adppopup=true">Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One interesting aspect of these cases is the apparent contradictions involved.</p>
<p>After Floyd’s death, many <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/corporate-america-weighs-protests-racism-companies-struggle-diverse/story?id=71077049">big companies proclaimed their commitment to fight racism</a> and promised to do a better job of supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. </p>
<p><a href="https://corporate.homedepot.com/news/diversity-equity-inclusion/message-craig-menear-racial-equality-justice-all">Home Depot</a>, for example, expressed its “anguish over the senseless killing of George Floyd” and “other unarmed Black men and women in our country.” The company explained how it had established worker programs “to facilitate internal town halls to share experiences and create better understanding.” </p>
<p>Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/amazon-donates-10-million-to-organizations-supporting-justice-and-equity">made a similar statement</a>, along with a pledge to donate US$10 million to “organizations that are working to bring about social justice and improve the lives of Black and African Americans.”</p>
<h2>Possible aftermath</h2>
<p>To be sure, this NLRB decision isn’t the final word on this issue, because <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d4583c8e109">Home Depot has filed an appeal</a>.</p>
<p>Regardless of how the courts respond, the NLRB’s decision is historic. The labor panel has established that a worker’s support for Black Lives Matter in the workplace isn’t merely an expression of their political beliefs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Z. Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Racism can be a workplace issue, even at Home Depot.Michael Z. Green, Professor of Law and Director, Workplace Law Program, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2248922024-03-13T12:38:53Z2024-03-13T12:38:53ZWhat the numbers say about diversity on corporate boards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581302/original/file-20240312-28-1hong4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=956%2C204%2C8157%2C5260&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Corporate diversity efforts have resulted in more women and minorities sitting on boards. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bright-clean-modern-style-conference-room-royalty-free-image/1667099947?phrase=corporate++board+directors&adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Through the decades, corporate boards have been mostly white and mostly male. </p>
<p>That started changing in the early 1970s. Fueled by the historic gains of the Civil Rights Movement that broke down racial and gender barriers, a variety of social groups such as the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/promising-students-benefit-commitment-developing-170000223.html">National Black MBA Association</a> and the <a href="https://now.org/">National Organization for Women</a> pressured corporations to build diversity programs into their management structures. </p>
<p>Over the years, a dramatic change has occurred. My latest research on the corporate boards of the top 50 companies from 2011 to 2023 shows that the percentage of whites dropped to 73.6%, the percentage of men dropped to 65.3% and, rather remarkably, the percentage of white men dropped below 50%, to 49.5%. </p>
<p>My research included reviewing the published names of the members of the boards of directors of the top 50 companies on the 2011 and 2023 Fortune 500 lists, as well as information on company websites about each of these hundreds of directors. I coded for gender, ethnicity and educational background. </p>
<p>Though the patterns differ for each of these demographic groups, the percentages of white women, Asian, Hispanic and Black Americans increased by different amounts as the percentage of white men decreased.</p>
<h2>White female directors</h2>
<p>The percentage of white females serving on boards at the top-50 companies increased from 16.8% in 2011 to 24.1% in 2023. All of these white women had undergraduate degrees, and almost two-thirds had advanced degrees, including in business, law and medicine. Many of them were <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/06/05/fortune-500-companies-2023-women-10-percent/">current or former CEOs</a> of Fortune 500 companies.</p>
<p>Notably, and related to the increase in white female directors, between 2000 and 2020 there was <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/diversity_update_2020.html#fnr20">a dramatic increase</a> in the number of white female CEOs.</p>
<p>There were almost as many white female directors in 2023 as there were Blacks, Asian Americans and Latinos combined. In terms of sheer numbers, white men have been replaced by white women more than by any other single group.</p>
<h2>Asian American directors</h2>
<p>The changes can be seen clearly in a comparison between the makeup of the top-50 company boards <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/diversity/unexpected_increase_in_diversity.html">between 2011 and 2023</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="rQ4Ho" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rQ4Ho/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>During that time period, the percentage of Asian Americans more than tripled, from 1.8% to 6.1%. The percentages more than doubled for Asian American men, and increased almost ninefold for Asian American females. </p>
<p>Strikingly, 17 of the 20 Asian American men who were directors in 2023 were of Indian heritage – and most but not all were born in India. Only six of the 15 Asian American women were of Indian heritage, and seven were of Chinese background.</p>
<p>Asian Americans make up about 7% of the population, so they are now only slightly underrepresented on the top Fortune boards.</p>
<h2>Black and Hispanic directors</h2>
<p>Black Americans also showed a sizable increase, from 9.4% in 2011 to 15.1% in 2023. They, too, showed a bigger jump for women, from 1.9% to 5.9%, than for men, from 7.4% to 9.2%.</p>
<p>Black people made up about 13.6% of the population in 2023, so they were slightly overrepresented on these Fortune boards. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/race-in-the-workplace-the-frontline-experience">McKinsey & Company</a>, a management consulting firm, conducted a study of 53 corporations, most of which were Fortune 500 companies. The study, released in 2022, found that there were far fewer Black men and women in the pipeline leading to the CEO office than on the boards. That pipeline includes jobs such as managers, vice presidents and others on leadership teams.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A Black woman is speaking as she sits in a chair on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Michelle Jordan, AT&T chief diversity officer, talks about equity and inclusion during a 2023 conference in Atlanta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/michelle-jordan-chief-diversity-officer-at-t-speaks-onstage-news-photo/1779377976?adppopup=true">Paras Griffin/WireImage</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>This suggests that these companies are trying to appear diverse through the makeup of their boards, even as they haven’t diversified the executive ranks.</p>
<p>Hispanic Americans showed only a slight increase in representation on the boards, from 4.7% in 2011 to 5.2% in 2023, with women almost doubling their representation, from 1.1% to 2.1%, and men decreasing from 3.6% to 3.1%. </p>
<p>Hispanic Americans make up about 19% of the U.S. population. As a group, they were very much underrepresented on corporate boards.</p>
<p>Many of those in all of the groups I looked at had attended elite colleges and universities, either as undergraduates or for postgraduate work. Recent evidence showing that Hispanic men and women have been <a href="https://edtrust.org/resource/private-universities-havent-increased-diversity/?emci=6e70acb4-83d5-ee11-85f9-002248223794&emdi=425387aa-41d6-ee11-85f9-002248223794&ceid=456745%5D">vastly underrepresented at elite colleges</a> over the past two decades suggests that few are making it through the pipeline from these schools to Fortune 500 boards.</p>
<h2>Recent attacks on diversity</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-2003-supreme-court-decision-upholding-affirmative-action-planted-the-seeds-of-its-overturning-as-justices-then-and-now-thought-racism-an-easily-solved-problem-208807">the 2023 Supreme Court decision</a> against affirmative action in higher education – and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/diversity-equity-dei-companies-blum-2040b173">subsequent lawsuits</a> against the practices that some corporations have used to address inequality – the civil rights gains in higher education and on corporate boards are in jeopardy of being reversed by conservative resistance. </p>
<p>In fact, many big companies have been “backing away from efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in their ranks,” according to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/01/woke-capitalism-esg-dei-climate-investment/">Washington Post corporate culture reporter</a>.</p>
<p>The pattern that I have found in board composition between the 1990s and 2023 is consistent with data from 2013 to 2023 that was published by <a href="https://www.spencerstuart.com/research-and-insight/sp-500-new-director-and-diversity-snapshot">Spencer Stuart</a>, an executive search firm. It found that in 2013, only 39% of newly appointed directors were women and underrepresented minorities.</p>
<p>In the next decade, the percentage of new diversity appointments to boards increased dramatically, from the 39% in 2013, to 60% in 2018, to 86% in 2021, and then tapered off to 82% in 2022 and 75% in 2023.</p>
<p>Based on my findings and those of other researchers, it is likely that the ups and downs of diversity on corporate boards will serve as an indicator of the success – or failure – of ongoing efforts to increase inclusion in all walks of American life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richie Zweigenhaft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since the 1970s, corporate boards have included more women and minorities. But those gains are likely to change after a US Supreme Court ruling and increased conservative resistance.Richie Zweigenhaft, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, Guilford CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234582024-03-12T13:52:34Z2024-03-12T13:52:34ZColonial statues in Africa have been removed, returned and torn down again – why it’s such a complex history<p>In 2020, the <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/crime-law-and-justice/killing-of-george-floyd">murder of George Floyd</a> in the US served as a catalyst for the global <a href="https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM">Black Lives Matter movement</a>. It sparked widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism. It also ignited <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">debates</a> about historical symbols of oppression, such as statues of figures associated with racial injustices. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-06-12/pulling-down-statues-of-racists-africas-done-it-for-years">These debates presented colonial statues</a> in Africa as having been contested and toppled for many years, ever since African states gained independence. Indeed, colonial statues were at the heart of the colonial world, symbolising its violence, white supremacy and the erasure of precolonial history. But colonial monuments in African public spaces have much more complex and often overlooked histories.</p>
<p>As a scholar of African heritage, I recently published a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13527258.2023.2294738">study</a> examining colonial statues and how they have been regarded in postcolonial Africa. My historical investigation highlights three major phases. </p>
<p>First, in the era of independence of African states, from the 1950s to 1980, some statues were removed from public spaces, but many remained. </p>
<p>Second, the 1990s and 2000s were marked by the “return of empires”: statues that had been removed were put back in public spaces and new neo-colonial monuments were constructed. </p>
<p>Third, the renewed challenges to colonial statues from the 2010s faced some strong resistance. Understanding this history is crucial, as it exposes the challenges of truly moving beyond the colonial world and order.</p>
<h2>Colonial statues at independence (1950s-1980)</h2>
<p>As African countries gained independence from the 1950s to the 1980s, colonial statues faced three main fates: recycling; defacement or toppling; and on-site preservation. </p>
<p>Recycling involved relocating statues from former colonies to former colonial metropolises. Most went from Algeria to France and from Kenya to England. The statues of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f3760af0-6545-11e4-91b1-00144feabdc0">Lord Kitchener</a> and <a href="https://equestrianstatue.org/gordon-charles-george/">General Gordon</a>, for example, were sent from Khartoum in Sudan to England in 1958. The reasons for these repatriations were multiple and included the desire to keep alive memory of colonial times and to feed colonial nostalgia. </p>
<p>Defacing or toppling was the second phenomenon, which occurred across the continent, from Algeria to Mozambique. One instance was the defacement and toppling of the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/51780170/The_Maid_of_Algiers_Deploying_and_dismantling_Joan_of_Arc_as_a_globe_trotting_icon">statue of Joan of Arc</a> in Algiers in 1962. These acts of violence were necessary responses to the violence of the colonial order and represented a break from the past. They also symbolised the cleansing of public spaces, to destroy symbolically the power imbalances, racism, inequalities and urban exclusions that defined the colonial world. Some of these toppled statues were then sent back and recycled in the former metropolis. </p>
<p>However, across Africa, many colonial monuments remained untouched, for various reasons. Some African leaders at independence were pro-Europe, having been educated there or having worked there during colonial times. And at independence, privileged links were forged between the former colonies and the metropolises. This was the case with some former French colonies. As a result, the leaders of former French colonies did not want to change the key symbols of the colonial world. </p>
<h2>The empires strike back (1990s-2000s)</h2>
<p>From the 1990s, many colonial statues dismantled and hidden during the independence era were reinstalled. Aid from former imperial powers to former colonial countries is one explanation. An example is the controversial <a href="https://contestedhistories.org/wp-content/uploads/Democratic-Republic-of-Congo_-Leopold-II-Statue-in-Kinshasa.pdf">re-erection of the statue of former Belgian king and Congo “owner” Leopold II</a> in front of the main train station in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2005. It’s easy to see why: the millions of US dollars in aid that Belgium gives the DRC every year.</p>
<p>The turn of the millennium also saw (neo)colonial statues deliberately erected to celebrate 19th century explorers and missionaries. In countries that were once part of the British Empire, such statues were built to attract tourists. For example, a new <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13527258.2023.2294738">statue of David Livingstone was erected in 2005</a> for the 150th anniversary of his arrival at Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls) in Zambia. It was paid for by airlines, travel agencies, luxury lodges, TotalEnergies and local authorities. </p>
<p>However, this statue of Livingstone can also be seen as an international event, linked to colonial monuments built with France’s cooperation. This is notably the case of the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/109/436/367/146718?redirectedFrom=fulltext">2006 Savorgnan de Brazza</a> memorial erected in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. This project of Algeria, Congo, France and Gabon <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/109/436/367/146718?redirectedFrom=fulltext">reburied</a> the remains of the Italian-French explorer De Brazza, his wife and their children in the memorial. </p>
<p>The project mixed geopolitics and bilateral aid, cultural diplomacy and colonial violence. Echoing imperial rivalries, the memorial and its statue also served as distinct markers of France’s spheres of influence, and its attempt to counteract its decline in the region.</p>
<h2>Renewed contestations (from the 2010s)</h2>
<p>(Neo)colonial monuments were increasingly contested in the 2010s. Such protests have accelerated in recent years and have become more visible, thanks to social networks.</p>
<p>The most famous case is the <a href="https://twitter.com/RhodesMustFall">Rhodes Must Fall movement</a>. This led to the removal of the statue of the British colonialist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cecil-Rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> on the campus of the University of Cape Town in South Africa in April 2015. This movement opposed neoliberal economic systems which had failed to respond to fundamental change, especially in areas such as education.</p>
<p>The movement quickly spread to other countries, inspiring other protests such as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/racist-gandhi-statue-removed-from-university-of-ghana">#GandhiMustFall</a>” in Ghana, Malawi and England. Statues of the Indian leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi">Gandhi</a>, considered a racist, were contested. Another movement is “<a href="https://faidherbedoittomber.org/a-propos/">Faidherbe must fall</a>”, aiming to remove the statue of the French colonial administrator Faidherbe in Saint-Louis/Ndar in Senegal and in Lille in France.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-background-story-to-a-statue-of-gandhi-and-the-university-of-ghana-117103">The background story to a statue of Gandhi and the University of Ghana</a>
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<p>Some of these movements have drawn attention to the link between colonial or racist statues and aid. For example, the #GandhiMustFall movement prevented the construction of a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46051184">Gandhi statue in Malawi in 2018</a>. This project was linked to a <a href="https://sikhsiyasat.net/india-offers-to-double-aid-for-malavi-as-malavian-government-agrees-to-install-gandhi-statue-despite-local-opposition/">US$10 million aid deal from India</a>.</p>
<h2>A complex issue</h2>
<p>While acknowledging successes in removing colonial statues, it is important not to overlook the substantial support for (neo)colonial monuments all over Africa. </p>
<p>Such support can be explained by pressure from former colonial powers and the links of elites with these countries. Financial constraints, international aid and the potential of tourism are also factors. Then there’s the conviction that all vestiges of the past, even the most painful, must be preserved.</p>
<p>The statue of the French military commander <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53148608">Philippe Leclerc</a> in Douala in Cameroon, for example, still stands, despite being attacked several times by Cameroonian <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/7/the-activist-purging-cameroon-of-french-colonial-monuments">activist</a> André Blaise Essama.</p>
<p>As a result, (neo)colonial statues still have a bright future ahead of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophia Labadi has received funding from the Humboldt Foundation and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.</span></em></p>The fate of several colonial statues in Africa continues to be a subject of controversy.Sophia Labadi, Professor of Heritage, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173442023-11-14T21:35:48Z2023-11-14T21:35:48ZCanadian cities continue to over-invest in policing<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canadian-cities-continue-to-over-invest-in-policing" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Year-end debates about 2024 budgets have already begun across Canada, with cities <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/waterloo-regional-police-service-mark-crowell-1.7000460">like Waterloo</a> <a href="https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2023/11/08/ottawa-police-propose-13-4m-spending-increase-for-2024/">and Ottawa</a> proposing spikes in police budgets.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/defund-police-2023-budgets-grow-1.6741711#:%7E:text=Following%20the%20murder%20of%20George,of%20Canadians%20supported%20the%20idea.">public calls to “defund the police” in 2020</a>, the budgets of Canadian police departments have continued to rise. In fact, when it comes to public safety budgets in Canada, the last five years have seen increasing investments in policing and under-investment in the social services and programs that contribute to safer cities. </p>
<p>The continued over-investment in policing is a limited and contradictory approach to safety. For one thing, police forces don’t address the root causes of violence and other harms. </p>
<p>Research has shown the “deterrence effect” of policing <a href="https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/276">to be weak</a>, while aggressive policing often impairs the social relations and institutions that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/want-to-reduce-violence-invest-in-place/">normally keep violence and conflict in check</a>. </p>
<p>It should be obvious that preventing violence and other harms is better than punishing perpetrators after the fact. However, as <a href="https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/s/Cops-Dont-Stop-Violence">numerous studies have shown</a>, this requires an investment in a range of non-police services and programs. It means recognizing the inherent limitations of policing and adopting a broader approach to public safety. </p>
<p>Too often, however, city leaders equate safety with policing, and throw public money at an institution that actually creates unsafety for many people while failing to prevent violence and other harms.</p>
<h2>Contradictions in policing</h2>
<p>Policing is also a contradictory approach to safety. </p>
<p>While promising safety to some, policing is a source of “unsafety” for many communities. This is evident in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/m_features/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-carding">police carding</a> <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives">and violence</a> against Black people, the brutal repression of <a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/07/15/police-brutality-in-canada-a-symptom-of-structural-racism-and-colonial-violence/">Indigenous people</a> and especially <a href="https://indiginews.com/first-person/in-the-aftermath-of-latest-raid-wetsuweten-decry-rcmp-harassment">land defenders</a>, the harassment of <a href="https://rapsim.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/VF2_Judiciarisation-de-litine%CC%81rance-a%CC%80-Montre%CC%81al.pdf">unhoused people</a> and the <a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/Overview%20of%20Encampments%20Across%20Canada_EN_1.pdf">destruction of their property</a>, the killing of people experiencing <a href="https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-custom/deadly-force/">mental health crises</a>, the criminalization of <a href="https://sexworklawreform.com/infosheets-impacts-of-c-36/">sex work</a> and much more. </p>
<p>This is nothing new. Police forces were created specifically to enforce <a href="https://trackinginjustice.ca/analysis-policing-colonialism-and-discrimination/">a particular, white and bourgeois sense of order and safety</a>, and police “reforms” like multicultural training and hiring more racialized police officers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.11.003">do not alter that core mission</a>. </p>
<p>Various studies and reports since 2020 have provided further evidence of anti-Black racism in <a href="https://spvm.qc.ca/upload/Rapport_Armony-Hassaoui-Mulone.pdf">police stops</a> and <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/Use%20of%20force%20by%20the%20Toronto%20Police%20Service%20Final%20report.pdf">use of force</a>, but none of this has stopped city leaders from further investing in the institution that causes these harms.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-georgia-using-extreme-legal-measures-to-quell-cop-city-dissenters-216482">State of Georgia using extreme legal measures to quell ‘Cop City’ dissenters</a>
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<p>If we view the police only as a source of safety, we are occupying a particular social position: a position of racial and class privilege.</p>
<h2>Policing spending: Before and after 2020</h2>
<p>In the spring of 2020, when the police killed <a href="https://justiceforbreonna.org/">Breonna Taylor</a> in Louisville, Ky., <a href="https://www.vera.org/news/what-justice-for-george-floyd-looks-like">George Floyd</a> in Minneapolis and <a href="https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2023/06/06/Three-Years-No-Justice-Chantel-Moore/">Chantel Moore</a> in Edmundston, N.B., new attention was brought to the contradictions and limitations of policing. </p>
<p>Historic protests filled the streets in the United States and around the world. <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/disarm-defund-dismantle">The phrases “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” became synonymous</a>. </p>
<p>The rhetoric of defunding the police may have been new, but the core demand was consistent with longstanding critiques of policing and racial injustice. The core demand, as <a href="https://breachmedia.ca/toward-a-police-free-future-in-canada/">Black feminist scholar and organizer Robyn Maynard explains</a>, is to reallocate funding, power, equipment and force “away from agents of state violence and repression, and committing to invest instead in community-centred forms of safety.”</p>
<p>However, police budgets have continued to increase by an average of three per cent per year, adding to an almost 20 per cent increase over five years. Budgets for 2023 saw an especially large increase: an average of six per cent, with increases of more than eight per cent in Montréal, Vancouver and Peel Region. </p>
<p>Therefore, the 2020 protests had little impact on police budgets in Canada. In fact, police spending actually increased at a greater rate in the three years after 2020 than in the three years before it. In some cities, the change was especially significant. Montréal’s budget, for example, increased by 19 per cent after 2020.</p>
<p>As always, police spending is determined not just by what cities decide to provide, but what police forces themselves decide to spend. Police forces generally adhere to their budgets, but there are exceptions. </p>
<p>Between 2018 and 2022, Ottawa and Vancouver exceeded their budgets by $8.7 million and $12.2 million, respectively. The glaring outlier is the Montréal police, which exceeded its budget by $35.7 million per year and $178.6 million overall. </p>
<h2>Choosing safety, not policing</h2>
<p>The political message these budget choices sends is clear. Whatever <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/after-the-2020-protests-we-were-told-things-would-be-different-so-why-are-police/article_07d8c81c-ffa4-5dbb-bb67-972a0f8fe138.html">statements city leaders might have made in 2020</a>, Black lives do not matter to them in practice. </p>
<p>More broadly, cities have failed to incorporate the key argument that progressives have always made, reinforced in 2020: services and programs other than policing are required to prevent violence and other harms. </p>
<p>There have been some moves in this direction. Both <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-community-crisis-service-report-expansion-city-council-committee-1.7007108">Toronto</a> and <a href="https://reachedmonton.ca/initiatives/24-7-crisis-diversion/">Edmonton</a> have introduced crisis response teams that see health workers, rather than police, respond to calls related to mental health. <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-will-be-getting-a-new-emergency-number-for-mental-health-crises-1.6477699">Ottawa</a> will follow suit next year. </p>
<p>The amount invested in these teams, however, is much less than the new money provided to police.</p>
<p>As the end of 2023 approaches, Canadian urban leaders need to recognize that the safety of their cities means investing in safety, not police.</p>
<p>There is no shortage of guidance for this shift, from Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie’s book <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/no-more-police"><em>No More Police</em></a> to the excellent <a href="https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/220117bopc1021.pdf">report by Halifax Board of the Police Commissioner’s Subcommittee</a> and the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ee804787469504a54387fd9/t/62d9a5671916485cdc753921/1658430826746/La+vision+des+communaute%CC%81s+-+finale+%28FR%29.pdf">alternative city budget from the Montréal Defund the Police Coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The broad imperative is to significantly reduce police budgets for 2024, while reallocating funding to some of the many services and programs that give people more safety and police less work to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Rutland receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p>Despite public calls to defund the police in 2020, the budgets of Canadian police forces have continued to rise.Ted Rutland, Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164822023-11-09T16:10:17Z2023-11-09T16:10:17ZState of Georgia using extreme legal measures to quell ‘Cop City’ dissenters<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/944f8901-89d9-4868-81fd-5d165b61996d?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>Earlier this week, nearly five dozen people <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/06/atlanta-cop-city-police-protesters-charged-rico-law">appeared in a courtroom near Atlanta</a> to answer criminal racketeering and domestic terrorism charges brought against them by the state. The charges are related to what’s commonly known as “Cop City,” a $90-million paramilitary police and firefighter training facility planned for 85 acres of forest near Atlanta.</p>
<p>The Atlanta Police Association saw a need for such a facility at the start of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings and started to fund raise. Many corporations have contributed to the plans for a world-class police training facility.</p>
<p>Georgia prosecutors are calling the demonstrators “militant anarchists.” But many of those charged say they were simply attending a rally or a concert in support of the <a href="https://www.stopcopcitysolidarity.org/">Stop Cop City movement</a>. </p>
<p>The protesters, their lawyers and their supporters, who rallied outside the court this week, say the government is using heavy-handed tactics to silence the movement. The <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/rico-racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations-act-statute">RICO charges</a> brought against the demonstrators essentially accuse them of being part of organized crime and carry a potential sentence of five to 20 years in prison. </p>
<p>Legal experts worry about the type of precedent this might set for our right to protest. It’s a case a lot of people are following nationally and internationally, for that reason.</p>
<p>In this week’s <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/state-of-georgia-using-extreme-legal-measures-to-quell-cop-city-dissenters"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> episode,</a> we speak with one of the leaders of the Stop Cop City movement. Kamau Franklin is a long-time community organizer and the founder of <a href="https://communitymovementbuilders.org/">Community Movement Builders</a>. He is also a lawyer — and was an attorney for 10 years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta. </p>
<p>Also joining us is Zohra Ahmed, assistant professor of law at the University of Georgia. A former public defender in New York, she, too, has been watching this case closely. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In 2020 when people were talking about…defunding the police …the state…instead of doing any of that, decided to double down here in Atlanta and bring forth the idea…of a Cop City, a large scale militarized police base meant to learn tactics and strategies on urban warfare, crowd control, civil disbursement which was meant to move against community organizers and activists. The idea of Cop City is that it’s not only going to train the police in Atlanta, but it’s going to train police across the state and across the country and have international connections…so that different policing agencies are learning similar tactics and strategies and exchanging ideas on how to suppress.
- Kamau Franklin</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Read more in The Conversation</h2>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/arrests-of-3-members-of-an-atlanta-charitys-board-in-a-swat-team-raid-is-highly-unusual-and-could-be-unconstitutional-206984">Arrests of 3 members of an Atlanta charity's board in a SWAT-team raid is highly unusual and could be unconstitutional</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/students-demand-removal-of-mild-racist-from-georgia-landscape-140105">Students demand removal of 'mild racist' from Georgia landscape</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fortress-usa-how-9-11-produced-a-military-industrial-juggernaut-166102">'Fortress USA': How 9/11 produced a military industrial juggernaut</a>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
<p><a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/disarm-defund-dismantle"><em>Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada</em></a>, edited by Shiri Pasternak, Kevin Walby and Abby Stadnyk</p>
<p><a href="https://www.akpress.org/practicing-new-worlds.html"><em>Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies</em></a>, by Andrea J. Ritchie</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-fight-against-cop-city/">"The Fight Against Cop City”</a> (<em>Dissent Magazine</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/cop-city-indictment-atlanta/">“How Georgia Indicted a Movement”</a> (<em>The Nation</em> by Zohra Ahmed and Elizabeth Taxel)</p>
<p><a href="https://afsc.org/companies-and-foundations-behind-cop-city">The Companies and Foundations behind Cop City</a> (American Friends Service Committee)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jpost.com/israeli-news/article-711682">“Georgia State police return home after two-week Israeli training”</a> <em>(The Jerusalem Post)</em> </p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_mJBLBznANz6ID9rBCUk7gv_ZRC4Og9-">YouTube</a> or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. </p>
<p><a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dontcallmeresilientpodcast/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Legal experts worry the “doubling down” on demonstrators who are opposed to the planned giant police training facility could undermine the right to protest.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientAteqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161722023-11-07T19:34:27Z2023-11-07T19:34:27ZBy reviewing the name of the Baden-Powell Award, Scouts Australia is grappling with its colonial past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556783/original/file-20231031-17-w7qbls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C272%2C4329%2C4776&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/poole-dorset-england-july-9-2022-2176477387">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scouts Australia is <a href="https://scouts.com.au/blog/2023/09/25/baden-powell-scout-award-name-review/#:%7E:text=At%20the%202023%20National%20Rover,reflects%20our%20modern%20Scouting%20model.">considering</a> changing the name of its most prestigious youth award, the <a href="https://nsw.scouts.com.au/about/youth-program/rovers/baden-powell-award/">Baden-Powell Scout Award</a>. </p>
<p>Presented to recipients by the governor-general, this award is named after the movement’s founder, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, fondly known as B-P. </p>
<p>For millions, Baden-Powell remains a hero. For others, his role in creating the largest youth movement in history is overshadowed by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53007902">allegations of colonial war crimes</a>. </p>
<p>Like <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-5871.12496">Macquarie University</a>, the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/city-of-sydney-to-review-colonial-statues-20231025-p5ef1x.html?ref=rss">City of Sydney</a>, and other institutions, Scouts is caught in an awkward gap between tradition and modernity, as society grapples with colonial figures who were heroes to some, but not others.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-history-tells-us-about-boy-scouts-and-inclusion-74805">What history tells us about Boy Scouts and inclusion</a>
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<h2>Adapting to changing social values</h2>
<p>Scouts is one of Australia’s largest youth organisations, with <a href="https://scouts.com.au/about/what-is-scouting/">over 70,000 members</a>.</p>
<p>Globally, the movement has <a href="https://www.scout.org/">57 million members and volunteers across 174 national organisations</a>. </p>
<p>Baden-Powell’s handbook, <a href="http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/yarns00-28.pdf">Scouting for Boys</a>, is the <a href="https://scouts.com.au/about/what-is-scouting/history/">fourth best-selling book</a> of the 20th century.</p>
<p>The movement began in 1907 after Baden-Powell coordinated a camp on Brownsea Island, England. Baden-Powell’s Scouting philosophy emphasised social responsibility and outdoor skills. The movement became a global sensation, arriving in Australia in 1908.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding its positive influence in fostering youth life skills, the early Scouting movement arguably sometimes operated as an <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zw8ng.10">agent of British colonialism</a>. In the early 20th century, it spread across distant outposts of the British Empire, where it encouraged imperial loyalty.</p>
<p>Scouting has endured for over a century, in part because of its willingness to adapt to changing social values. </p>
<p>In 1973, Scouts Australia first <a href="https://nsw.scouts.com.au/about/about-us/history-of-scouting/">admitted women</a>. In 2018, Scouts Australia altered <a href="https://scouts.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Promise-and-Law-FAQ.pdf">the wording of the Scout Promise</a>. </p>
<p>Now, <a href="https://nsw.scouts.com.au/about/about-us/promise-a-law/">a Scout can decide</a> between swearing to “do their duty” to their king or queen, <em>or</em> their community and world, and can pledge to their “spiritual beliefs” <em>or</em> “their God”.</p>
<h2>But back to Baden-Powell</h2>
<p>Scouts Australia is “reviewing the appropriateness of the <a href="https://scouts.com.au/blog/2023/09/25/baden-powell-scout-award-name-review/#:%7E:text=At%20the%202023%20National%20Rover,reflects%20our%20modern%20Scouting%20model.">Baden-Powell Scout Award name</a>”.</p>
<p>In part, this has been prompted by overseas events. In 2020, amid Black Lives Matter demonstrations, a statue of Baden-Powell in England appeared on a “Topple the Racists” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/11/scouts-founder-robert-baden-powell-statue-poole-storage-petition">hit list</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, the statue was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53333844">defended</a> by local Scouts, and a petition against its removal <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53333844">received over 40,500 signatures</a>.</p>
<p>Controversy around Baden-Powell stems from allegations he held antisemitic and racist attitudes. </p>
<p>In 2010, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/11/scouts-founder-robert-baden-powell-statue-poole-storage-petition">declassified M15 files</a> showed Baden-Powell had been invited to meet Adolf Hitler to build closer ties between Scouts and Hitler’s youth organisation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53007902">Historians have since argued</a> Baden-Powell has been incorrectly framed as a Nazi sympathiser. The meeting never eventuated, and Scouting was <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46983166">banned</a> in Germany, with Baden-Powell being placed on a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53007902">Nazi death list</a>.</p>
<p>Before Scouts, Baden-Powell was already a hero of the British Empire for his efforts during the South African War. </p>
<p>This conflict claimed the lives of thousands of Black Africans. As an army officer, Baden-Powell famously defended the town of <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-siege-of-mafeking-a-timeline-of-events/">Mafeking</a>, becoming an overnight hero to the British.</p>
<p>Yet, Baden-Powell has since been accused of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zw8ng.10">war crimes</a> against local Africans, including unlawful executions and contributing to starvation. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/16/historybooks.books">Historians contest</a> the extent to which Baden-Powell ought to be blamed. </p>
<p>Regardless, as an agent of empire, Baden-Powell cannot be extricated from the legacy of British colonialism in Africa. Globally, Scouts <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53041444">has recognised this</a>, with the Chief Scout of the UK, Bear Grylls, admitting Baden-Powell’s “failings”.</p>
<h2>An extended process of public reckoning</h2>
<p>Scouts is just one of many organisations forced to reckon with their colonial baggage.</p>
<p>Often, colonial origin stories are commemorated through the names of places or institutions.</p>
<p>Anyone driving across Australia today will still see reminders of our colonial past in racist naming practices that glorify certain legacies over others, or spread a distorted version of history. The case to replace obviously racist place names can be uncontroversial, provided consultation takes place with Traditional Owners.</p>
<p>In recent years, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-29/ten-racist-names-queensland-wiped-off-maps/8852536">Queensland has revoked</a> certain racist place names, while Tasmania has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-01/suicide-bay-renamed-cape-grim-tasmanian-aboriginal-massacre/100041282">renamed several places</a> that previously commemorated colonial violence.</p>
<p>However, some cases can become fraught.</p>
<p>Examples include the many entities that derive their name from <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/about/Pages/1810-to-1821-Governor-Lachlan-Macquarie.aspx">Lachlan Macquarie</a>, who served as New South Wales governor from 1810 to 1821. He has been celebrated as a humanitarian, yet Macquarie terrorised local Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>His military carried out the <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/fighting-wars/appin-massacre/">Appin Massacre of 1816</a>. Macquarie ordered the victims’ <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/fighting-wars/appin-massacre/">bodies to be strung from trees</a> as a warning against further resistance.</p>
<p>Today, Macquarie’s legacy is increasingly disputed. This year, a <a href="https://amp.smh.com.au/national/nsw/absolutely-disgusted-sydney-statue-defaced-in-anzac-day-protest-20230425-p5d32t.html">statue of Macquarie was defaced</a>, with graffiti exposing his record of violence.</p>
<p>Even Macquarie University <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-5871.12496">is facing calls</a> to recognise his ambiguous legacy, <a href="https://www.mq.edu.au/about/about-the-university/mq-story/history/macquaries-influence">rather than promoting him</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A statue commemorates Governor Lachlan Macquarie at Hyde Park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556978/original/file-20231031-17-50ge38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A statue commemorating Governor Lachlan Macquarie stands in Sydney’s Hyde Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sydney-australia-on-january-26-2014-733647601">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In Hyde Park, a plaque beneath a statue of Macquarie <a href="https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/government---colonial/display/99472-governor-lachlan-macquarie">describes him</a> as “a perfect gentleman”.</p>
<p>Yet the City of Sydney has recently <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/city-of-sydney-to-review-colonial-statues-20231025-p5ef1x.html?ref=rss">announced a review</a> of 25 colonial statues, with an aim to include new signage that presents a fuller picture of history.</p>
<p>This is likely to be the start of an extended process of public reckoning. This may extend from relatively unknown statues, or place names, to big businesses and institutions with connections to questionable legacies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-taking-a-wrecking-ball-to-monuments-contemporary-art-can-ask-what-really-needs-tearing-down-140437">Friday essay: taking a wrecking ball to monuments – contemporary art can ask what really needs tearing down</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ciara Smart receives funding from the University of Tasmania. </span></em></p>Like many other institutions, Scouts is caught in an awkward gap between tradition and modernity, as society grapples with colonial figures who were heroes to some, but not others.Ciara Smart, PhD candidate in Australasian Colonial History, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138992023-10-17T19:06:51Z2023-10-17T19:06:51Z‘Reflect, listen and learn’: Melissa Lucashenko busts colonial myths and highlights Indigenous heroes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553899/original/file-20231016-25-zrb6u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C36%2C8179%2C5420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Melissa Lucashenko</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Glenn Hunt/UQP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article mentions ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.</em></p>
<p>Melissa Lucashenko’s latest novel, <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/edenglassie">Edenglassie</a>, takes the reader on a journey through magnificent and heartbreaking dual narratives set five generations apart. The reader steps through time, and weaves back and forth between the early 19th century and 2024, on the precipice of these stories possibly meeting. </p>
<p>Edenglassie is written with an intrinsic understanding of Country as kin. Both Country and Ancestors remind the reader of the lessons Country has guided mob by: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Patience. You are not the centre on which the world turns</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Alongside this, we see the continual disturbances of Country and kin caused by colonial violence and unrest – through kidnapped children and massacres.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Edenglassie – Melissa Lucashenko (UQP)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Lucashenko gifts us with characters impossible to not to invest in. They are perfectly whole and lovable, with minor flaws. As an Aboriginal woman, I found them all relatable – I could picture various Community members just like them. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-wit-and-tenderness-miles-franklin-winner-melissa-lucashenko-writes-back-to-the-whitemans-world-121176">With wit and tenderness, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko writes back to the 'whiteman's world'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It’s Granny Eddie’s world</h2>
<p>The first character we meet is Granny Eddie, who has been hospitalised after a fall. She is as stubborn as she is wise, at the ripe age of 103. Her growl expresses that familiar balance of hard-to-swallow truths that make you realise when you’re wrong, even if you want to argue. Her grandaughter Winona is on the receiving end of it – and knows when to shut her gob “like a real Goorie must do when being growled by her elder”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553905/original/file-20231016-19-wdi6tm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Winona – fiery, hot and Blak – is perfectly captured through vivid details. I could visualise her, with her <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/three-years-on-from-the-black-lives-matter-marches-indigenous-deaths-in-custody-are-at-a-record-high/ma6sjvm32">Black Lives Matter hat</a> and <a href="https://hausofdizzy.com/">Haus of Dizzy</a> earrings, drinking a can of Pepperberry <a href="https://sobah.com.au/">Sobah</a>. Winona laments not seeing her Granny Eddie enough, while also trying to find a job, disrupt the colony and make sure her granny is safe and cared for.</p>
<p>At the hospital, we meet Dr Johnny. Respectful, kind and considerate, he is trying his best to care for Granny Eddie – and finds himself pushing professional boundaries as he falls head over heels for fiery Winona. At first, she resists his attraction: sparks fly in opposing directions. She and Dr Johnny have much to learn from each other as they bond over their care for Granny Eddie.</p>
<p>These deep characterisations are counterbalanced with <em>laugh or you’ll cry</em> characters, like the predatory white anthropologist, ready to record any Blak story he can, while he tells you about the “fullbloods he knew in the territory”. Or the gronk white guy with dreads making money off the Yidaki, who tells Winona: “Yeah, I’m Indigenous, sis […] Indigenous to Australia, I mean”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-didnt-we-know-is-no-excuse-non-indigenous-australians-must-listen-to-the-difficult-historical-truths-told-by-first-nations-people-208780">'Why didn't we know?' is no excuse. Non-Indigenous Australians must listen to the difficult historical truths told by First Nations people</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Shifting time</h2>
<p>Lucashenko transports you, shifting through time. In 1844, we meet Mulanyin, saltwater man, whose inner complexities are explored in depth as he learns the Law and lessons from Country and Ancestors. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>With that thought, the boy had the electric realisation that all his life he had been eating the decisions of his Ancestors. Every fish, every mudcrab, every ugari or turtle or vegetable or egg or fruit, they all came to him – to all his people – from generations of nurture. None of it was accidental, or random. And if his Old People hadn’t cherished the biggest fish and the female turtles, if they hadn’t sung up the Country, and protected the fecund of every species since the dawn of time, then he would not have eaten the results from the fire that night. […] The thought consumed him with wonder; it made him feel small, yet at the same time as though he belonged in a universe of meaning; part of a web of ceaseless and sacred connection across thousands of generations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am reminded of the poem, The Past, by the late <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A12345">Oodgeroo Noonuccal</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let no one say the past is dead.<br>
The past is all about us and within.<br><br>
Haunted by tribal memories, I know<br><br>
This little now, this accidental present<br>
Is not the all of me, whose long making<br><br>
Is so much of the past.<br></p>
</blockquote>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oF5PxEnkgiI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Oodgeroo Noonuccal reads her poem, The Dispossessed. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this video contains names and images of deceased people.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Mulanyin’s reflections, relationships and actions are at the heart of this story. He’s balancing the complexities of being off Country while meeting his new obligations. His unwavering love for his beloved Nita, from the first day he laid eyes on her, brings an endearing romance to the story – an incredible, deep love. Nita and Mulanyin are bound together in a moment of care from their first touch: Nita dressing Mulanyin’s wound with fresh oodgeroo branches. </p>
<p>Mulanyin has a central goal – he wants to earn enough money to get a whale ship and set sail with Nita, back to home Country. He imagines fishing and all the bingkin he could catch. Imagines not working for the coloniser. </p>
<p>I found myself hanging on every word, taking in the Yagara language of Magandjin, or Brisbane. (You can learn more about the Yagara name of Brisbane by reading <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/makunschan-meeanjan-miganchan-meanjan-magandjin/?fbclid=IwAR3dg2IFlhQFxnnJ9WXY1KJG9xHgWJAM4MXsHJP7a0qik9xqBBO033yxpjs">this essay</a> by Gaja Kerry Charlton.) </p>
<p>There’s an extra layer for readers living in Magandjin, who will make connections to local places. They will know about the histories of the book’s locations (for instance, that Woolloongabba was a swamp) and will be able to recognise present-day local details, like Story Bridge, which spans the Brisbane River. </p>
<p>Complex current realities of Indigenous life are seamlessly woven into the book. Mental health challenges are represented early on, through what Winona describes as <em>the Voice</em>. This voice eats at her insecurities – calling her a loser and the “numbawan dumb dawwwwwwg”.</p>
<p>The novel also touches on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-generation-redress-scheme-wont-reach-everyone-affected-by-the-policies-that-separated-families-166499">Stolen Generations</a>, white control of Blak bodies and the ongoing violence of the colony through vitriolic racism, abuse and murder. We are presented with the origins of contemporary realities, too, through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-war-memorial-must-deal-properly-with-the-frontier-wars-203851">Frontier Wars</a> and acts of genocide. </p>
<p>And we’re reminded of the ongoing nature of this violence, through injustice towards and racialisation of Blak bodies – exemplified through Mulanyin’s observations of drunk white men prowling to assault Aboriginal women, and white people exerting control through addictive substances such as alcohol, tobacco and opium. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-day-i-dont-feel-australian-that-would-be-australia-day-36352">The day I don’t feel Australian? That would be Australia Day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Your body is not your own’</h2>
<p>Edenglassie also acknowledges Indigenous global relatives around the world. In the 1800s, Mulanyin is interested to learn about the Goories of all countries, and surprised to learn about Native Americans: their opposition to settlers and their “great flat plains full of game, antelope and buffalo”. </p>
<p>In the present, Winona and Granny Eddie interact and relate with Māori mob, through shared understandings of birthing practices and opposition to white cultural appropriation. Winona recieves an “Ey, good onya sis” from a Māori woman after educating a whitefella, and Granny Eddie is farewelled with lots of waving from a Māori family leaving the hospital with their new family member.</p>
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<p>I found myself laughing, crying and fighting off goosebumps as I read. There were moments when I had to put the book down, to sit with what I was reading. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/authors/melissa-lucashenko">Lucashenko</a> has once again crafted a novel that is gritty, emotive and funny – like her previous novels, the 2019 Miles Franklin winning <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/too-much-lip-1">Too Much Lip</a> and <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/mullumbimby-2">Mullumbimby</a> (2013). In Edenglassie, she continues her art of affirming our Indigenous futures. </p>
<p>We see this through staunch Winona, who dreams big and is headstrong and unwavering. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>She imagined endless offices filled with endless Blak bodies, mob all around typing emails and having meetings and doing whatever the fuck else office workers did, (not much in her experience), until each Blak body in turn closed their laptop stood up and walked out the door never to return. Because the whole mob of em had bought back the farm, over and over and over, in their tens of thousands, till they once more owned the continent they had never agreed was lost. Imagine it. Streets and suburbs and country towns, all owned by happy blackfellas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As you make your way through Edenglassie’s two narratives and timelines, you will find how and why they collide – and the nature of the past informing the present, and vice versa. This structure highlights the impacts and the depth of the ongoing strengths of Indigenous cultures. </p>
<p>This novel is a gift to all who pick it up and journey with the stories it holds. It is clear Lucashenko has done extensive research to position this historical fiction through past and present Magandjin localities. </p>
<p>This is further evidenced by Lucashenko’s extensive acknowledgments and thanks to contributors and knowledge holders in the book’s author notes. Among them are Boe Spearim and his groundbreaking podcast <a href="https://boespearim.podbean.com/">Frontier War Stories</a>: a must-listen for those wanting to learn more about the wars on Australian soil.</p>
<p>Infinite lessons can come from this brilliant novel, for those who are ready to reflect, listen and learn – and to sit in potential discomfort as colonial narratives are unwoven and corrected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamika Worrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Melissa Lucashenko’s latest novel is an epic, affirming pathways for Indigenous futures – and she gifts us with characters impossible not to invest in.Tamika Worrell, Lecturer in the Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2133302023-09-20T12:47:01Z2023-09-20T12:47:01ZAmericans do talk about peace − just not the same way people do in other countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549141/original/file-20230919-29-46yjz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children wave peace doves at a concert for peace in Bogota, Colombia, in August 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/choir-made-up-of-more-than-10000-children-wave-peace-doves-news-photo/1419832116?adppopup=true">Chepa Beltran/Long Visual Press/Universal Images Group via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans don’t talk much about peace. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2022.94">it turns out</a> they care about it a lot – they just don’t talk about it the way people who have experienced war or civil conflict do. </p>
<p>When public opinion polls in the U.S. ask people about peace, it’s either in the context of <a href="https://www.thearda.com/data-archive?fid=GSSPANEL2">religion</a> or <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/245705/americans-higher-hopes-prosperity-peace-2019.aspx">world peace</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of using the word peace, Americans are more likely to say that they care deeply about safety and security and issues like <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/02/06/economy-remains-the-publics-top-policy-priority-covid-19-concerns-decline-again/">terrorism, crime, illegal drugs and immigration</a>. </p>
<p>But they still care about the same things people in places that have faced war are focused on. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People wear face masks and hold large yellow and white peace signs on a city street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549142/original/file-20230919-15-3xgj0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protestors hold peace signs in support of Black Lives Matter in July 2020 in Oakland, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-hold-peace-signs-in-support-of-black-lives-news-photo/1258684586?adppopup=true">Natasha Moustache/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is peace?</h2>
<p><a href="https://sps.columbia.edu/faculty-staff/peter-dixon-phd">We are</a> <a href="https://www.scu.edu/cas/political-science/faculty--staff/fiorella-vera-adrianzen/">social scientists</a> who are part of a <a href="https://www.everydaypeaceindicators.org/team">network of peace and conflict</a> <a href="https://www.scu.edu/cas/political-science/faculty--staff/naomi-levy/">researchers </a> and <a href="https://possibilitylab.berkeley.edu/">community-engaged</a> <a href="https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/faculty/amy-e-lerman">scholars</a> at several universities. We and our other colleagues have spent a lot of time talking with different communities that have experienced war, including in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huac030">Colombia</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2020.1812893">Afghanistan</a> and <a href="https://www.everydaypeaceindicators.org/_files/ugd/849039_a2d4c66b63cc4e67815a6b736cc42cd5.pdf">Bosnia and Herzegovina</a>, about what <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-photography-can-build-peace-and-justice-in-war-torn-communities-166143">peace looks like</a> to them.</p>
<p>Peace is hard to define. In the dictionary, it’s equated with tranquility or the absence of war. We see it as broader. Peace is the ability for people to live in harmony with themselves and with each other. In practice, however, that can mean <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395715622967">many different things</a> to different people. </p>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/everyday-peace-9780197563397?cc=us&lang=en&">We know</a> that <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reclaiming-everyday-peace/BEB6532292D692933AABC68EFFF9ACB3">people who directly experience conflict</a> and violence tend to have very broad, but also nuanced, definitions of peace. </p>
<p>In Colombia, for example, many communities told us they felt at peace when they had the infrastructure necessary to supply basic needs, like clean water, or when they could actively participate in regular social gatherings. In Bosnia, residents highlighted the ability to use public spaces, including rebuilt ruins from the war, as well as the presence of more day-to-day amenities like streetlights and parking.</p>
<p>But until a recent project in Oakland, California, we weren’t thinking about our work in America as also being about peace. </p>
<p>Since 2021, we’ve been working with six community organizations in Oakland to understand how people define and experience safety and well-being in their everyday lives. As it turns out, these concepts helped us get at how Americans, who have not experienced war like the people in other regions we’ve worked with, might also understand peace.</p>
<h2>Re-imagining safety</h2>
<p>Our research’s focus on safety was inspired by a number of <a href="https://www.nlc.org/post/2021/02/16/nlc-assembles-task-force-of-local-leaders-to-reimagine-public-safety-in-communities-across-the-u-s/">cities and towns</a>, like <a href="https://www.columbus.gov/reimaginesafety/">Columbus, Ohio</a>, and <a href="https://www.austintexas.gov/publicsafety">Austin, Texas</a>, that have launched projects to reform how public safety is conceived of and protected following the widespread <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html">Black Lives Matter protests</a> in 2020. </p>
<p>Oakland has undergone a similar process of asking residents to help their local government <a href="https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/reimagining-public-safety">rethink what safety</a> means. And, like <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-voters-rejected-plans-to-replace-the-minneapolis-police-department-and-whats-next-for-policing-reform-171183">other cities</a>, Oakland residents have had an intense <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/The-Oakland-Police-Department-claims-it-is-16386039.php">debate over the police department</a> and how the government should reform its approach to crime. </p>
<p>We spoke to over 500 residents across parts of Oakland that have been especially hard hit by crime and violence and who live in areas that have historically been both overpoliced and underserved with public resources. </p>
<p>We asked questions like, “What does safety or the lack of safety look like here,” and “What are some signs that the community is doing well or not doing well?”</p>
<p>These conversations covered a lot of ground – ground that was similar to other conversations we’ve had about peace with people who live in conflict zones or countries with long histories of war.</p>
<p>Some Oakland residents spoke about how kids are desensitized to gunshots and violence or are arrested or kicked out of their homes. We heard that these kids and teenagers ultimately lose sight of how their lives – and the lives of others – have value.</p>
<p>High school students also reflected on the prevalence of guns, shootings and gangs in their lives. As one told us, “I want to go back” to a more innocent time, when “I didn’t know nothing about any of this.”</p>
<p>But just as we know that violence and security are only two aspects of people’s understandings of peace, the same is true of safety. The police – and even crime – are just two aspects of how communities think about safety in their everyday lives. They also think about economic opportunities, public space and social connections.</p>
<p>We heard about how, when kids have basic life skills and job skills training, or have mentors and role models, this can give them choices that are alternatives to criminal activity and help them invest back in their communities.</p>
<p>We heard about block parties and <a href="https://www.townnights.org/">town nights</a>, which inspire people of different races and ethnicities to look out for each other and build trust with their neighbors. “By us, for us,” as one resident put it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The back of a man flashing two peace signs with his hands is seen on a city street, with many other people walking past him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549145/original/file-20230919-25-r870wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man flashes the peace sign as protesters march during an Occupy Oakland protest in November 2011 in Oakland, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-flashes-the-peace-sign-as-thousands-of-protestors-march-news-photo/131201340?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From safety to peace</h2>
<p>The United Nations marks the annual <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace">International Day of Peace</a> on Sept. 21, 2023. </p>
<p>In general, the U.S. does not widely recognize or celebrate global holidays like these, including <a href="https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/america-started-international-womens-day-so-why-don-t-we-celebrate-it-50b10ec7829e">International Women’s Day</a> or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/30/1095729592/what-is-may-day-history">International Labor Day </a>. </p>
<p>But, like peace, safety is about far more than reducing violence. It’s being able to trust that police <a href="https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/whats-next-policing">have communities’ interests in mind</a> and knowing that residents will receive fair treatment in the courts. </p>
<p>It’s also being able to breathe clean air and access work and educational opportunities. It’s about being able to openly share past trauma, feel loved and connected, and so much more.</p>
<p>This all has important implications for what Americans want – and what they actually get – from their local governments. When policymakers define safety as the absence of violence and benchmark it primarily against metrics like <a href="https://theconversation.com/republicans-say-crime-is-on-the-rise-what-is-the-crime-rate-and-what-does-it-mean-192900">crime statistics</a>, they limit the kinds of policies that cities and their residents can look to. </p>
<p>Typically, the main policy responses in the U.S. to crime and violence have centered on policing and incarceration.</p>
<p>In contrast, our conversations across Oakland suggest that communities are already using different frameworks and language to assess safety. These in turn offer up a more holistic set of potential interventions. What, we might ask, would city leaders focus on if they were evaluating the success of public safety reforms by whether children are playing outside in the park, or whether people know the names of their neighbors?</p>
<p>Building safety in the U.S. is more akin to building peace internationally than many Americans may think. As we celebrate world peace, we think people should remember that these conversations matter here at home, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Dixon received funding for this project from Santa Clara University. He is a Board Member of Everyday Peace Indicators. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy E Lerman received funding for this project from the California Community Foundation / California 100 Initiative.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiorella Vera-Adrianzen received funding for this project from California Community Foundation / California 100 Initiative through Santa Clara University. She is a research associate at Everyday Peace Indicators.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Levy received funding for this project from the California Community Foundation / California 100 Initiative. She is a member of the Everyday Peace Indicators Board of Directors. </span></em></p>While Americans tend not to use the word “peace,” and instead opt for terms like “safety and security,” their desires and fears are not so different from what people in war-torn places express.Peter Dixon, Associate Professor of Practice, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Columbia UniversityAmy E Lerman, Professor of Political Science & Public Policy and Executive Director, Possibility Lab, University of California, BerkeleyFiorella Vera-Adrianzén, Political science lecturer, Santa Clara UniversityNaomi Levy, Associate Professor of Political Science, Santa Clara UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127522023-09-19T21:13:40Z2023-09-19T21:13:40ZDiscriminatory policing is denying Black youth their childhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549188/original/file-20230919-17-h1y5xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C40%2C3805%2C2115&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Youths’ stories detail concerning interactions with the police which speak to ongoing anti-Black racism in Canadian policing.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/discriminatory-policing-is-denying-black-youth-their-childhood" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>A <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-police-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-carding-stops/article_472b85b0-9220-5e9a-aa4c-461ccc2cc0d0.html">class-action lawsuit</a> was brought against the Toronto Police Service in August over the force’s historic use of street checks, known as carding. The <a href="https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/carding-class-action">lawsuit</a> highlights the damaging and discriminatory impacts of carding, which has disproportionately affected Black and Indigenous youth. </p>
<p>Officially, the practice was halted years ago, though the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-toronto-police-carding-1.6939215">lawsuit alleges that the practice continues</a>. The allegations have not been tested in court.</p>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726">2020 murder of George Floyd</a>, millions mobilized worldwide to demand accountability from police and bring attention to the anti-Black racism embedded in policing practices. <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781442602502-005/html?lang=en">Racial disparities are evident in Canada</a>. Black communities are significantly over-represented in the criminal justice system, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21533687211006461">second only to Indigenous communities</a>. </p>
<p>The Canadian judicial system is a complex, integrated network of policing, courts and correctional institutions. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0145935X.2023.2243436?src=recsys">Our recent research</a> focuses on policing practices in Ontario, specifically when Black youth encountered police before 18-years-old. Youths’ stories highlighted concerning interactions with the police which speak to the ongoing problem of anti-Black racism in Canadian policing.</p>
<h2>Black youth and policing practices</h2>
<p>Anti-Black racism occurs early in the legal process, well before sentencing and incarceration. Anti-Black racism persists in policing, evidenced by the <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/A%20Disparate%20Impact%20-%20TPS%20inquiry%20%28updated%20January%202023%29.pdf">Ontario Human Rights Commission’s interim report</a> on racial profiling and discrimination against Black individuals by the Toronto Police Services. </p>
<p>When examining Black children’s experiences, extra nuances concerning age must be considered. Childhood and adulthood have been recognized as distinct developmental ages since the 1900s and have been officially enshrined in Canadian law with the introduction of the <a href="https://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/J2-248-2004E.pdf">Juvenile Delinquents Act in 1908</a>.</p>
<p>Youth criminal justice legislation has centred on diversion and prevention, rather than punishment, which recognizes young people’s distinct developmental needs. The <a href="https://www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/y-1.5/index.html">Youth Criminal Justice Act</a> recognizes the lasting impact of confinement on young people; since coming into effect in 2003, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ontarios-new-child-welfare-policy-is-promising-but-youth-leaving-care-need-more-support-202437">number of youth in detention</a> has <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2018/learning-from-our-success-in-reducing-youth-imprisonment/">steadily decreased</a>. Despite positive outcomes that signal the success of diversion practices, Black youth in Ontario continue to experience negative encounters with police. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A logo of the toronto police service on a glass door." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In August a class-action lawsuit was brought against the Toronto Police Service over street checks, alleging the practice disproportionately harmed racialized people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0145935X.2023.2243436">Our research explores the experiences of Black youth</a>, ages 16 to 26, living in the Greater Toronto Area. We discuss findings from the <a href="https://rcypartnership.org/en/">Rights for Children and Youth Partnership</a>, a research project exploring the rights of Latin American and Caribbean youth. </p>
<p>We conducted interviews with 47 Black youth who had previous contact with police between ages 12 and 17. We found that, despite their age or degree of vulnerability, Black youth felt police perceived them as agitators to be feared and as threats to the general public, rather than children in need of protection.</p>
<p>One interviewee, Matt, told us how he was first stopped by police while walking home from school with two friends while in eighth grade. According to Matt, the police claimed that the three boys matched a description. The boys were handcuffed and forced to sit on the curb. While two were eventually let go, one was arrested and taken to the station. Matt said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We [were] underage first and foremost…they didn’t read us no rights…didn’t ask no questions, and they didn’t tell us what we were being arrested for…They came in there for one thing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the use of force is concerning and <a href="https://www.ccja-acjp.ca/pub/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/08/Full-Report-PUF.pdf">supposed to be a last resort</a> in all police interactions, its use with youth is particularly concerning, given their vulnerability. Youth recalled threats of implied or explicit violence from police. </p>
<p>Another interviewee, Shawn, recounted being arrested for shoplifting. The officer said he wished he could have used more force on the then 17-year-old. Shawn said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I got kneed a couple of times … the cop was saying, "Oh I wish I was here, I would have got to use this,” and he was talking about his taser … “I wished you had tried to escape from me, I would have used this on you.”“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/girlhood-interrupted.pdf">A study by the Center on Poverty and Equality</a> in the United States found that Black children — particularly girls — were perceived as older, needing less protection and more knowledgeable about "adult” topics. Black youth felt they were expected to know the full extent of the law and were granted little leeway if they were unaware. </p>
<p>In nearly every interview of our study, youth disclosed receiving little to no support or information from the officers with whom they interacted. Caity told us how she was arrested after a fight broke out at school. She was 12 at the time and described the lack of support from police officers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I’m terrified at this point because I didn’t know it was going to be this serious and everything was a surprise to me … I’m crying a little bit. The lady is very cold with me, she’s in no way — not that she had to be kind — but she just didn’t, there was no warmth in her at all.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the people we spoke to had their first encounters with police officers at a young age — for some as early as 12 or 13. The youth consistently felt they were perceived as criminals, regardless of the setting they were in. </p>
<p>These racially discriminatory practices indicate anti-Black bias wherein routine activities involving Black children and youth result in active policing. The participants largely expressed that they believed the police had mistreated them. </p>
<p>Minors are meant to be treated differently than adults in the legal system because of their young age. Police are denying Black youth their childhood, and governments must demand greater transparency. Ultimately, more accountability is needed from police to the young people they are meant to be protecting and serving.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veronica Escobar Olivo receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marsha Rampersaud receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Black youth felt their age and inexperience were often disregarded by police officers who held them wholly responsible for knowing and abiding by the law.Veronica Escobar Olivo, Research Associate, School of Social Work, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityMarsha Rampersaud, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Science, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2109592023-08-04T19:22:47Z2023-08-04T19:22:47ZToronto Caribbean Carnival should bring attention to anti-Black racism affecting communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541161/original/file-20230804-15-wejf60.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C7114%2C4743&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A dancer with Tribal Carnival is helped into her costume ahead of the King and Queen Show, part of Toronto Caribbean Carnival, on Aug. 3, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/toronto-caribbean-carnival-should-bring-attention-to-anti-black-racism-affecting-communities" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Every summer Toronto plays host to revellers and spectators, visitors and locals, for one of the biggest events of the season: the <a href="https://www.torontocarnival.ca/">Toronto Caribbean Carnival (TCC)</a>. Last year’s carnival brought almost two million people and <a href="https://www.torontocarnival.ca/_files/ugd/08adeb_c1c4596d9016436d886b6809be94dc14.pdf">just under half a billion dollars to the city</a>, and similar if not greater numbers are expected this year.</p>
<p>Under the theme of “Diversity and Culture Live Here,” the Festival Management Committee that oversees carnival events is encouraging everyone to join in the fun. Many see TCC activities, especially the culminating <a href="https://www.torontocarnival.ca/event-details/the-grand-parade">Grand Parade</a>, as an opportunity to go full throttle with the bacchanal. And carnival is about play and pleasure and partying.</p>
<p>But beyond the fun and sparkly costumes are some real problems around the exploitation of the culture of a community that usually doesn’t receive positive play in the media and elsewhere at other times of the year.</p>
<p>Heavy commercialization of the TCC also results in a significant amount of money coming into the city with not much of it bringing any benefit to Caribbean communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dancer in a large costume on stage during a Caribbean carnival." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541162/original/file-20230804-27-22wyvj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tribal Carnival’s front Princess, Caneisha Edwards, takes part in the King and Queen Show, part of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, on Aug. 3, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Carnivals and protest</h2>
<p>In the post George Floyd era, it is even more important that these issues are acknowledged and tackled head on. One would hope, for example, that event organizers would consider explicitly framing at least some of the main events through the lens of what the world learned about anti-Black racism from the Black Lives Matter protests.</p>
<p>On the official <a href="https://www.torontocarnival.ca/donate">TCC website</a>, organizers ask for donations so that the “community and festival” can “continue to celebrate, raise awareness and to resist discrimination and oppression through our original music, masquerade performances, culinary experiences, and other expressions of our Caribbean culture.”</p>
<p>This suggests they understand the TCC can amplify and build on conversations and actions initiated during the protests. Perhaps, too, that phrasing on the website could mean an openness to embracing social critique and protest, which are hallmarks of Caribbean carnivals in other locations, such as in Trinidad and Tobago.</p>
<p>Carnival celebrations <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/mas-protest-how-traditional-carnival-was-born-out-of-resistance-1.4773816">born out of resistance</a> to, and which mark emancipation from, chattel slavery have long been part of the cultural experience of Caribbean peoples. Carnival traditions in the Caribbean have also long found a balance between creating a spectacle and being socially responsive, between being celebratory while also unafraid of challenging the status quo.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a large multicolored costume on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541182/original/file-20230804-27-2amatg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A participant parades a costume during the King and Queen Show, part of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, on Aug. 3, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If the carnival’s organizers used its visibility to bring attention to structural and institutional anti-Black racism affecting communities, it would more fully embrace that Caribbean tradition.</p>
<p>So far, though, there’s not much evidence of such explicit framing. It would be a seriously missed opportunity if the 2023 festivities came to an end without engaging with the ways the community is affected by anti-Black racism.</p>
<h2>Raising awareness</h2>
<p>This 56th year of the TCC is kicking off on the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/BLM-tenth-anniversary?fbclid=IwAR0HJmw252qzvtb-NU6cw3s2xtmu2tNR4T6zr6Yi_IAVLShnFegZWCwTZsI">10th anniversary of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement</a>. This is only the second year, too, that the TCC’s main events overlap with Emancipation Day.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/emancipation-day.html">Emancipation Day</a>, observed on August 1, was made official in Canada in March 2021 in the wake of the BLM protests. The day offers Canadians an occasion to learn about <a href="https://www.vehiculepress.com/q.php?EAN=9781550653274">Canada’s history of enslaving Black and Indigenous Peoples</a> and better understand how racism continues to impact communities today.</p>
<p>TCC dates also coincide with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/simcoe-day-canada-s-roots-in-slavery-and-the-historic-abolition-1.1303678">Simcoe Day</a>, which is observed in <a href="https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/pages/programs/provincial-plaque-program/provincial-plaque-background-papers/chloe-cooley">remembrance of the 1793 anti-slavery act</a>.</p>
<p>So, if there was ever a time for the TCC to lean into its social commentary and protest roots, that time is now.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman at a demonstration carrying a Black Lives Matter flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541164/original/file-20230804-23-ygrmno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People attend the #BLM Turns 10 People’s Justice Festival on July 15, 2023 in Los Angeles. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As someone who belongs to the Caribbean diaspora in Toronto, something I would like to see happen with the TCC is more overt critical engagement on the part of organizers, <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-history-of-mas-notting-hill-carnival/owVRsWygiT1m0g?hl=en">mas bands</a>, masqueraders and performers with anti-Black racism and other types of social injustice and inequity in Canada.</p>
<p>For masqueraders, that could mean choosing to play mas in ways that are more reminiscent of what people in the Caribbean call ‘ole mas.’ Bands could facilitate this socially- and politically-engaged mas by creating appropriate costumes and play scenarios for their band members.</p>
<p>Organizers could program events that promote greater awareness about the history of Caribbean carnivals. These could be public lectures, workshops and exhibits that take advantage of the reach and accessibility of virtual forums. Organizers could encourage greater engagement by artists and content producers with social events and topics, especially ones that concern Black and Caribbean Canadian communities.</p>
<p>They could also be more proactive about how corporate sponsorships and the growing commercialization of TCC events can be harnessed to benefit Caribbean and Black communities in Toronto.</p>
<p>The spotlight this summer on a post-pandemic, post-BLM iteration of the TCC could also help reignite productive public discussion about the policing of Black communities in Toronto. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/frustration-over-police-presence-at-caribbean-carnival-reflects-debate-over-anti-black-racism/article31149670/">TCC’s history with the police has not always been comfortable</a>. Toronto’s police force has repeatedly demonstrated over the years that it makes a problematic association between large gatherings of Black and other people of colour and public acts of violence.</p>
<p>Efforts have been made in recent years to address this, especially at the Grand Parade. <a href="https://thecaribbeancamera.com/toronto-caribbean-carnival-kicks-off-with-a-blazing-hot-launch/">News coverage</a> of the 2023 carnival observed that “In a departure from previous years, the Toronto Police chief was notably absent from the launch event, with only Black auxiliary officers seen near the stage.” But there is still a lot of work to do around changing how police interact with Black communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large group of people in costumes at a carnival" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541163/original/file-20230804-19-77kck2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masqueraders attend the Caribbean Carnival parade in Toronto on July 30, 2022. The 55th annual parade returned after the COVID-19 pandemic postponed it for two years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Helping Black businesses</h2>
<p>The TCC is arguably Toronto’s biggest and most visible Black-owned business. But while various businesses in the city — hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues, cultural attractions and landmarks — benefit financially, that has not been the case for many Black businesses, especially small ones.</p>
<p>The increasing commercialization of the TCC, such as big brand sponsorship of the bands and the trucks that accompany them along the Grand Parade route, is a significant part of this problem.</p>
<p>Current funding structures, and “business as usual” approaches exemplify how Blackness can be co-opted to serve corporate interests while Black communities are shut out of the benefits and profits. It’s Blackness on display — and only when such display is profitable — with little to none of this profit going to Black communities.</p>
<p>The City of Toronto and the TCC could demonstrate commitment to addressing anti-Black racism by rethinking the carnival’s financial participation and profit distribution models to benefit Black-owned businesses and communities.</p>
<p>There are already organizational structures in place for facilitating this. For example, the Festival Management Committee’s <a href="https://www.bbep.ca/about">Building Black Entrepreneurs Program</a> which has received funding from the federal government’s <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2020/09/09/prime-minister-announces-support-black-entrepreneurs-and-business">Black Entrepreneurship Program</a>. There’s also the City of Toronto’s <a href="https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/get-involved/community/confronting-anti-black-racism/">Confronting Anti-Black Racism unit</a>.</p>
<p>The Festival Management Committee, the City, TCC community stakeholders, partners and sponsors as well as the larger public need to have these conversations. Until then, simply focusing on jumping, waving, wining, feting and playing does a disservice to the true spirit of Caribbean carnivals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hyacinth Simpson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival brings festivities and fun to the city every summer. But beyond the dances and parades, carnivals are and should be places to protest and raise awareness of injustices.Hyacinth Simpson, Associate Professor, Department of English and Interim Director, Dimensions Program, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059372023-07-20T20:04:59Z2023-07-20T20:04:59ZFriday essay: Australia may ban WeChat – but for many Chinese Australians, it’s their ‘lifeline’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537707/original/file-20230717-219717-61j6oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C6000%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gigi/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One morning in February 2021, I was woken by a WeChat call from my brother in China. Mum had died the previous night, he told me. I wasn’t shocked to hear about Mum’s death – she had been very ill for a couple of years. </p>
<p>In fact, for months before she died, our weekly WeChat exchanges mostly took the form of my simply looking at her on the screen, noticing subtle signs of deterioration each time. In a way, these online occasions were more for my benefit than hers. She was progressively unable to recognise or communicate with me.</p>
<p>In the days after her death, my brother and his wife did their best to make me feel included. They persuaded the local crematorium to let them stream the funeral event live via WeChat, so I could “be there”. </p>
<p>In my inner-west home in Sydney, I saw Mum’s body in the coffin. Two days later, my brother hooked me up on WeChat again so I could witness the burial of my mum’s ashes in the cemetery. Half an hour after I ended this call, I had to join a work-related Zoom meeting. Thanks to the wonders of technology, my private grief had to be sidelined.</p>
<p>My dad was then in his mid-eighties, but very healthy for his age. He understood I couldn’t be there, knowing what I’d have to go through to actually visit him. </p>
<p>Two weeks of quarantine in a hotel in the international city where I would land (Shanghai), then one more week in a hotel in my home city in a nearby province, plus one week of home isolation. I kept assuring him as soon as the travel ban was lifted, I’d go to see him.</p>
<p>But he died a few months after Mum: suddenly, most likely due to a heart attack. So, we went through the same ritual on WeChat a few days later – in the crematorium and in the cemetery. This time, I knew what to expect.</p>
<p>I still have my dad’s voice messages on my WeChat. But I still can’t bring myself to play them and hear his voice. Even now, two years after his death, it is still too raw. </p>
<p>I am reminded of a remark from a WeChat researcher in Hong Kong: “<a href="https://www.wechat.com/">WeChat</a> is being used as an archive of emotions.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537705/original/file-20230717-232909-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WeChat is being used as ‘an archive for emotions’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">STRMX/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around the same time, I noticed my experience was quite common among people in the Chinese diaspora. In the last two years, I have come across many Chinese-language blogs that narrate their experience of having to farewell their parents on WeChat because of the quarantine. They’re written by people like me: members of the Chinese diaspora now scattered in different countries – the US, Canada, Australia, Europe and elsewhere.</p>
<p>I wanted to write something, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to open the emotional floodgates. There was work to do and academic papers to write. My emotions had to be regulated so they wouldn’t get out of control. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537954/original/file-20230718-25-qf2dvy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Qiao Ba’s WeChat screen. (Used with permission.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But each of the many blogs I read, which circulated widely in WeChat postings, provided me with an occasion to revisit my grief. I found reading them strangely therapeutic. </p>
<p>Qiao Ba (his online persona) is one of these bloggers. He told me he had last seen his father in a coffin, on WeChat. Prior to his father’s death, they had talked with each other on WeChat, with his dad lying in a hospital bed. His siblings used WeChat to update him on his father’s health and Qiao Ba was even in regular touch with his father’s doctors on WeChat. After his father died, in a blog post titled “The deepest pain of first-generation migrants”, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because the Pause button had been hit on international travel, many people’s last, hurried visits home were effectively their final farewells to their loved ones.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Covid-19 has given rise to a new genre of diasporic Chinese writing, expressing a cocktail of feelings. These include grief, sadness, guilt – and, importantly, gratitude to our families in China, who did all the heavy lifting in caring for aged or dying parents. </p>
<p>This is a genre unique to first-generation migrants. And the emergence of its “connection-in-separation” trope would not have been possible without WeChat.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-the-migrant-workers-who-made-my-iphone-taught-me-about-love-201563">Friday essay: what the migrant workers who made my iPhone taught me about love</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The ‘Swiss army knife’ of social media</h2>
<p>And yet, <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/banning-wechat-would-damage-democracy-experts-say-20230504-p5d5mb">an Australian Senate inquiry</a> is considering submissions that propose banning WeChat in Australia. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Foreign_Interference_Social_Media">Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media</a> is investigating the risk posed to Australia’s democracy by foreign interference through social media. A key area of its inquiry is whether to ban WeChat. </p>
<p>I’ve <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/banning-wechat-would-damage-democracy-experts-say-20230504-p5d5mb">made a submission</a> to the inquiry, with RMIT’s Professor Haiqing Yu, my WeChat co-researcher. We argue the ban would do more harm than good. </p>
<p>Many WeChat-using Chinese-Australians have not even heard about the proposal to ban it – but those of us who have are watching this space with mounting anxiety. </p>
<p>Many Australians have never used WeChat, which is owned by Chinese tech giant <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tencent-became-the-worlds-most-valuable-social-network-firm-with-barely-any-advertising-90334">Tencent</a>, and was launched – as Weixin – in 2011. The international version, WeChat, was launched the following year. </p>
<p>Soon, people found it nearly impossible to get by without it. In addition to being a communication and messaging platform, WeChat has dedicated functions that allow users to pay bills, book hotels and taxis, shop online and buy groceries. </p>
<p>WeChat is not merely an instant messaging tool, but a <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781787430914">“super sticky” app</a>. It has been <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/wechat-chinas-social-media-swiss-army-knife-could-take-over-world">dubbed</a> the “Swiss army knife” of social media. <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-became-meta-and-the-companys-dangerous-behavior-came-into-sharp-focus-in-2021-4-essential-reads-173417">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-a-great-idea-for-mates-but-a-terrible-one-for-ministers-66991">WhatsApp</a> and other Western social media are not allowed in China. This meant the uptake of WeChat soon reached near-saturation point. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537703/original/file-20230717-224435-7f5pi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WeChat is a ‘super sticky app’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerry Wang/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As my research with Haiqing Yu indicates, WeChat is extremely agile, versatile and resourceful. It comes with many features that resonate with traditional Chinese practices, such as sending monetary gifts (<em>hong bao</em> – “red envelopes”) to friends electronically.</p>
<p>Users have four ways of communicating on WeChat: Group Chat (in groups of up to 500 people), WeChat Moments, which allows users to post updates and share content with their circles of friends, WeChat Subscription Accounts, which allows users to publish a certain number of articles each day, and personal messaging. There’s also the recently launched WeChat Channels, which are public feeds of video and visual material, searchable through keywords and hashtags.</p>
<p>Spaces on WeChat are semi-private. WeChat allows users to decide who they want to be friends with in both private and group chats – and which friends they want to block from viewing their Moments. It also allows a user to find and follow any official account or channel, without any request or approval from the account holder (though you cannot unilaterally “follow” another user). And you have the option of “un-friending” anyone you have previously connected with.</p>
<p>To first-generation Chinese migrants in many countries, WeChat was a godsend, enabling them to stay connected with each other free of charge. Currently, there are as many as 1.3 billion users in 200 countries and regions, operating in 17 languages. </p>
<h2>Expert witness against Trump’s proposed US ban</h2>
<p>In August 2020, then US president Donald Trump signed executive orders prohibiting the use of <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/">Tik-Tok</a> and <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/">WeChat</a> in America. I was asked to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-wechat-ban-does-not-make-sense-and-could-actually-cost-him-chinese-votes-144207">write something</a> in response to the news. </p>
<p>A few days later, I received an email from <a href="https://rbgg.com/wp-content/uploads/RBGG-CLAY-Award-DJ-3-20-212-TOP-CLAY-Bien.pdf">Clay Zhu</a>, a San Francisco lawyer. He invited me to give expert testimony in a forthcoming legal challenge to Trump’s ban, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/20/wechat-ban-blocked-trump">argued</a> it would harm their First Amendment rights, especially freedom of speech. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537758/original/file-20230717-210840-7qwdng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I was an expert witness in a legal challenge to Donald Trump’s 2020 attempt to ban WeChat in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dennis Van Tine/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my testimony in the US legal case, I explained that WeChat is a lifeline for members of the Chinese diasporas, especially from the People’s Republic of China. It enables them to stay in touch with family members in China. It helps them conduct business and trade. And it helps them find and maintain social networks in their new environment.</p>
<p>My research on WeChat started in 2018, when Haiqing Yu and I embarked on our five-year research project. We aimed to explore Chinese-language digital and social media in Australia. </p>
<p>We spent a lot of time interacting with people in 45 Australia-based WeChat groups over four years, from 2018-2022. We also conducted in-depth, one-on-one interviews with a dozen WeChat users, and two large <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-do-chinese-australian-voters-trust-for-their-political-news-on-wechat-113927">surveys</a> of first-generation migrants from the People’s Republic of China, to get a sense of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-chinese-migrants-dont-always-side-with-china-and-are-happy-to-promote-australia-126677">media landscape</a> they inhabited.</p>
<p>In 2018, we had no inkling of the tumults and shocks that awaited Australia, China and the rest of the world. Nor did we anticipate the myriad new ways WeChat would be put to use as these events unfolded. </p>
<p>Our study constantly had to take into account whatever reality threw at us. While we tried to stay the course, we also needed to significantly extend our research – in several new directions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537761/original/file-20230717-222245-8l70pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When we started our WeChat study, we had no idea of the shocks awaiting the world – or the new ways WeChat would be put to use.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Owen Winkel/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>WeChat and the 2019 election</h2>
<p>A few months before Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/compare-the-pair-key-policy-offerings-from-labor-and-the-coalition-in-the-2019-federal-election-116898">2019 federal election</a>, we noticed the election had become a hot topic on WeChat. We realised WeChat was not just being used as a communication tool: it was educating new citizens about the electoral process. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305120903441">Our study</a> of the election found WeChat was being used to help people become more engaged in Australian politics. (A subsequent <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/wechat-s-role-australian-democracy-grassroots-view">study</a> of a state election also found this.) WeChat was teaching these new citizens about Australia’s political system, democratic values and electoral processes, and helping them become better-informed about their voting options.</p>
<p>This citizen education was made possible largely by the emergence of self-appointed opinion leaders on WeChat. These individuals seemed to be playing a crucial role in educating fellow voters and promoting informed political engagement. </p>
<p>There was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/labor-asks-questions-of-wechat-over-doctored-accounts-fake-news-20190506-p51kkj.html">widespread reporting</a> of election-related <a href="https://melbourneasiareview.edu.au/the-2019-australian-federal-election-on-wechat-official-accounts-right-wing-dominance-and-disinformation/">disinformation</a> being spread on WeChat during the campaign. But our observations also suggested these opinion leaders played a key role in debunking such misinformation and disinformation.</p>
<p>Sydney-based “XY” was one of eight opinion leaders we featured in <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/63429">our book</a>, which emerged from our study. He was educated in a prestigious university in China, then went on to work in the public service. XY came to Australia in the late 1990s. </p>
<p>An Australian citizen since 2006, this former Chinese public servant now runs a small business in Sydney. Then in his 40s (2019), XY actively participated in a dozen politics-themed groups. Eight were Australia-based and four were US-based. (He also participated in other groups.)</p>
<p>XY spends a lot of time browsing Australian and international English media, such as the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Washington Post and the New York Times. While Twitter is his preferred social media platform, he uses WeChat to repost news and information from elsewhere to his chat group members.</p>
<p>XY became a de facto leader in many of his groups, given his grasp of mainstream news and current affairs. He was strategic about how to exert influence during the election campaign. When he was trying to shape people’s voting preferences, he did so by quoting traceable sources (like mainstream media publications) and authorities (mainstream public figures), using their words to make his own point.</p>
<p>For example, in March 2019, he made three posts in his WeChat groups in quick succession. The first, in Chinese, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Sydney Morning Herald reported eight years ago on then Prime Minister and Liberal leader Scott Morrison’s proposal to use anti-Muslim sentiment to win votes – a claim that Morrison did not deny at the time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His second post was a link to news.com.au journalist Malcolm Farr’s <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/pm-accuses-waleed-aly-of-appalling-lie-over-muslim-comments/news-story/8b09f1f6d4c75c2440877bc5e71a30a1">then-recent story</a> about Morrison accusing TV presenter Waleed Aly of lying over this issue. The third post quoted a few key paragraphs from Farr’s story. </p>
<p>XY clearly favoured Labor over the Coalition. Farr’s piece painted an unfavourable picture of Morrison, implying he was at best inconsistent, at worst a liar. Yet, XY refrained from making judgemental statements about Morrison and the Liberals. He preferred to let Farr’s story speak for itself. Many people responded to his posts with praise or a “thumbs-up” emoji.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australias-mandarin-speakers-get-their-news-106917">How Australia’s Mandarin speakers get their news</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>WeChat during the Black Summer bushfires</h2>
<p>Soon after the federal election in 2019, many parts of Australia were choking with the smoke of <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-australias-bushfire-crisis-means-asking-hard-questions-and-listening-to-the-answers-129302">bushfires</a> that spread and burned for weeks. They claimed many lives, destroyed thousands of houses, and devastated millions of hectares of land and the animals on it. Many Australian individuals and community organisations donated generously to the victims and firefighters. </p>
<p>Chinese Australians were no exception. Many WeChat postings encouraged, organised and coordinated donations, disaster relief and recovery appeals. From this, we saw the great potential of WeChat as a platform to involve people in altruistic community initiatives.</p>
<p>It was in this context that the <a href="https://www.sydneytoday.com/content-101947573880036">story</a> of Ethan Wang caught our attention. Ethan was a primary-school boy living in Canberra. One day in November 2019, over breakfast, he heard his parents talking about what was on the news – 350 koalas had died in the bushfires in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. With his Canberra home shrouded in smoke, Ethan decided to act. He quickly made a hand-drawn fundraising poster, found a spot in the Gungahlin Shopping Centre and started playing his violin. His poster urged passers-by to donate money to save the koalas.</p>
<p>Ethan was not disappointed. Shoppers lined up to make donations. Ethan’s proud parents posted pictures on WeChat of their son busking to raise money. Much to their surprise, they received enthusiastic responses and further donations from families, friends and acquaintances in China – as well as Australia. </p>
<p>News of Ethan’s initiative spread on WeChat, and a few days later, having finished school for the day, Ethan found a group of Canberra-based Chinese-Australian parents waiting for him at the school gate – they wanted to hand over the money they had raised in his name.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-australias-bushfire-crisis-means-asking-hard-questions-and-listening-to-the-answers-129302">Making sense of Australia's bushfire crisis means asking hard questions – and listening to the answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>WeChat during Covid-19</h2>
<p>The raging bushfires had just recently been brought under control when Australia was plunged into the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. In December 2019, Wuhan in China <a href="https://theconversation.com/kafkaesque-true-stories-of-ordinary-people-inside-the-first-days-of-covid-19-in-wuhan-china-180039">went into lockdown</a>. </p>
<p>Not long after that, many Chinese Australians returned to Australia, especially after the Chinese New Year (which was 25 January). Many who arrived before mandatory self-isolation guidelines came into effect (on 1 February 2020) decided to self-isolate on their arrival – despite being healthy and virus-free. They were acutely aware of community anxiety about the virus and wanted to do their bit to minimise the risk.</p>
<p>But self-isolation meant the supplies they needed for everyday living had to be delivered to them. In response to this challenge, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-6b2mzbuyA">network of 300</a> Chinese-Australian volunteers in major Australian cities sprang into action. </p>
<p>They helped 600 households – and the initiative was coordinated through WeChat. Orders for groceries such as food, toilet paper and milk were taken via the app. The volunteers bought the items and delivered them to front doors or front gardens, and the householders transferred payments via WeChat. Through the entire process, there was no face-to-face interaction with those who were inside the isolated homes.</p>
<p>We learned from this grassroots response that WeChat could be an effective tool to mobilise and organise civic action.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fang-fangs-wuhan-diaries-are-a-personal-account-of-shared-memory-138007">Fang Fang's Wuhan diaries are a personal account of shared memory</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>WeChat and the Black Lives Matter movement</h2>
<p>Across the Pacific, a nationwide political storm was brewing in the US, which was still in the grip of the pandemic. <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-deserved-a-better-life-a-new-book-charts-his-trajectory-from-poverty-to-the-us-prison-industrial-complex-and-the-impact-of-his-death-182947">George Floyd</a>, a Black American man, was beaten to death by police, precipitating the large-scale <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-protests-are-shaping-how-people-understand-racial-inequality-178254">Black Lives Matter movement</a>. </p>
<p>Before then, WeChat had mainly been associated in the US with <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/wechat-misinformation-china.php">misinformation</a> by Trump supporters on the right. But 20-year-old <a href="https://www.scmp.com/video/world/3089830/anti-blackness-something-deeply-rooted-my-community-says-student-eileen-huang">Eileen Huang</a>, a student of English at Yale University, changed that. </p>
<p>In June 2020, Huang published an open letter on WeChat addressing Chinese Americans of her parents’ generation. Huang observed that many Chinese Americans have long-held, deep-seated prejudices against Black people – and she called on the Chinese-American community to speak up against racism targeting Black Americans. She called for cross-racial solidarity.</p>
<p>Huang’s letter quickly drew widespread but polarised responses. An open letter countering Huang was soon posted on WeChat. <a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rU3px2WD5elJ3H1lBUC98A">Lin Fei</a>, a male respondent from Huang’s parents’ generation, adopted a paternalistic tone in the letter, addressing Huang as a “child” who had been “brainwashed by lefties”. </p>
<p>The two letters were shared widely on WeChat, forcing an inter-generational debate across the political divide into the open. The resulting furore – and the intensity of the debate – led one <a href="https://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20200618/chinese-black-racism-us/">commentator</a> to say Huang’s open letter had ignited “a rare large-scale, open and direct ideological confrontation in the history of Chinese Americans”.</p>
<p>Back in Australia, sensing it might have profound resonances here, I followed this debate with great interest. Meanwhile, amid the global pandemic and the popular groundswell of support for George Floyd, many Australians in major cities across the nation <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-black-lives-matter-movement-has-provoked-a-cultural-reckoning-about-how-black-stories-are-told-149544">took to the streets</a> to voice their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. </p>
<p>When advised by public health authorities not to protest in public places, due to <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-socially-distance-at-a-black-lives-matter-rally-in-australia-and-new-zealand-how-to-protest-in-a-coronavirus-pandemic-139875">concerns</a> about the risk of spreading COVID-19, protesters in Perth nevertheless decided to go ahead with their planned rallies. But they did not have enough masks for protesters. </p>
<p>When a <a href="https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/chinese-community-donate-11000-face-masks-to-perths-black-lives-matter-protest-in-show-of-support-ng-b881575795z">Perth-based Chinese community</a> heard of their problem, they took to WeChat and successfully organised the donation of 11,000 masks overnight, which they had delivered to the protesters.</p>
<p>WeChat is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2018.1560110">known</a> to have spread racial prejudices. But its uses during Black Lives Matter and the pandemic show it can also be a powerful platform for civic engagement – and for mobilising positive and effective social movements.</p>
<p>Since our book was published, I have learned of <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/05/17/wechat-ban-chinese-australian-communities-senate-committee/">other ways</a> WeChat can be put to productive and creative use in Australia. </p>
<p>I’ve had conversations about the platform with social policy researchers in the aged care and health care sectors, as well as with individuals in business and trade. They have convinced me WeChat offers enormous potential to Australia’s social cohesion – just waiting to be tapped.</p>
<h2>Concerns about WeChat</h2>
<p>Despite these new insights, we are not blind to the risks and issues commonly associated with WeChat. These concerns need to be addressed seriously, and with evidence-based research.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/worse-than-tiktok-calls-for-wechat-to-be-banned-despite-huge-cost-20230420-p5d200.html">first major concern</a> is WeChat’s potential threat to national security. Indeed, President Trump’s ban was based precisely on this fear. </p>
<p>But the US court that overturned the ban established that this fear was ungrounded: despite the numerous claims put forward by the President’s legal team, the court found there was “scant” <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/20/trump-administrations-wechat-ban-is-blocked-by-u-s-district-court/">evidence</a> of its threat. The court promptly stayed the nationwide ban and by the middle of 2021, the newly-elected President Biden had officially withdrawn Trump’s executive orders.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/">second concern</a> is censorship and surveillance on WeChat. This is valid. Unknown to many people, WeChat, and its Chinese version, Weixin, are “two systems” that operate on “one app”. </p>
<p>Users who register with a Chinese mobile phone use Weixin, which is run by its Shenzhen-based parent company, Tencent. Weixin is <a href="https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2023/05/30/banning-wechat-bad-may-harm-australias-democracy/">governed by Chinese law</a>. Users outside mainland China, who register with a non-Chinese mobile phone, use WeChat – which is operated by a Singapore-based company, WeChat International. WeChat is governed by the relevant local laws of each user’s country of residence.</p>
<p>WeChat and Weixin work together as a multi-functional messaging and social media app. In some spaces on the app, such as chat groups and Moments, Tencent surveils all WeChat and Weixin messages. But <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/">censorship</a> of politically sensitive keywords and images is server-based. This only affects messages to or from Weixin users. </p>
<p>So, there is surveillance of WeChat messages – supposedly for the purpose of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/07/wechat-users-outside-china-face-surveillance-while-training-censorship-algorithms/">training the Weixin censorship algorithms</a>. But there is no censorship of messages sent from one Australia-based WeChat account to another, as they don’t pass through a China-based server. </p>
<p>However, messages sent between an Australia-based WeChat account and a China-based Weixin account <em>do</em> pass through Tencent’s servers in Shenzhen. So, they are subject to surveillance and censorship.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537765/original/file-20230717-243941-g5wkwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Messages sent between an Australia-based WeChat account and a China-based Weixin account pass through Tencent’s servers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liang Xiashun/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study recognises Tencent’s complex surveillance and censorship regime. But it suggests political communication, or criticism of the Chinese government or the Communist Party of China, is not the main reason people in diaspora use WeChat. </p>
<p>Most Chinese-Australian media entrepreneurs who operate on the platform have engaged in myriad ways of resisting, evading, bypassing and criticising surveillance, censorship and other forms of political oppression. So, despite clear concerns about these matters, we have identified many creative ways Australian users engage in entrepreneurial activities and cultural self-expression on WeChat.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/technology/wechat-china-united-states.html">third concern</a> is that WeChat functions primarily as an instrument of the Chinese government. Our research indicates that the content of state Chinese media does occasionally get posted on WeChat. And Chinese-language media outlets in Australia that use WeChat to push their content <a href="https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2023/07/08/reading-into-wechats-australian-opinion-leaders-and-brokers/">sometimes self-censor</a> to ensure circulation of their content (by withholding content critical of the Chinese government.) </p>
<p>But producers and editors at these media outlets have told us it doesn’t make business sense for them to function as mouthpieces of the Chinese government, nor to help the Chinese government push its agenda. The claim that WeChat is a “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/worse-than-tiktok-calls-for-wechat-to-be-banned-despite-huge-cost-20230420-p5d200.html">narrative machine</a>” for the Chinese Communist Party is ill-informed, alarmist and misleading. </p>
<p>WeChat users in Australia are not a homogenous group. And most people are by no means easy prey for WeChat propaganda. In fact, our research has produced ample evidence suggesting most Chinese Australians are motivated by pragmatic and business decisions to use WeChat: for content production, circulation and communication. </p>
<p>In other words, there is a crucial distinction between WeChat being subject to Chinese authorities’ surveillance and censorship, and WeChat being an instrument of Communist Party of China propaganda.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537763/original/file-20230717-184356-wo8n77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WeChat users in Australia are not a homogenous group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jorick Jing/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://qz.com/1742568/is-chinas-messaging-app-wechat-a-problem-for-democracies">fourth concern</a> is that WeChat could only be bad for democracy, due to censorship and the Chinese government’s desire to push propaganda content on the platform. </p>
<p>Our research suggests such a view overestimates the power of the Chinese propaganda to use a single platform to influence and control its hugely diversified diasporas – of over 50 million people. </p>
<p>It also underestimates the agency of members of the Chinese diaspora in harnessing a social media platform and using it for a wide range of purposes that far exceed its intended range of functions. Our research has shown that, like all other media platforms, Chinese-language digital and social media are used for both democratising and anti-democratising purposes.</p>
<p>All these concerns warrant serious consideration. But evidence-based research is vital in investigating and assessing both the risks and the benefits of WeChat.</p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>We offer two major recommendations for Australia’s policy makers.</p>
<p>Firstly, we believe the Australian government and regulators should recognise and acknowledge that, for the Chinese diaspora, WeChat is a necessity – not a choice. The government should actively explore the development of social media platforms that can function as viable alternatives to WeChat and can adequately address the needs of WeChat users in Australia in the long run. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537972/original/file-20230718-29-1u0mwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such a solution would need to accommodate the wealth of functions WeChat offers – bearing in mind that most users want to remain closely connected with family and friends in China, where the major Western social media platforms are currently not permitted.</p>
<p>Secondly, we think the Australian government should try to persuade Tencent to allow its international users to freely register WeChat subscription accounts, and to ensure such accounts are not subject to Chinese censorship. Then any individual or organisation in Australia would be able to use the platform on an even playing field with Weixin-registered users, in terms of content/news production and circulation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/20/wechat-ban-blocked-trump/">Michael Bien</a>, the leading lawyer for the plaintiffs in the legal challenge against Trump’s ban, made a crucial point when he said the proposed ban </p>
<blockquote>
<p>targets the Chinese American community and trampled on their First Amendment guaranteed freedoms to speak, to worship, to read and react to the press, and to organize and associate for numerous purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most users of Western social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, find ways to navigate around various content restrictions and advertising. While most of us manage to avoid being drawn in by scammers, many are not immune from the commercial and political influences that are part and parcel of using these platforms.</p>
<p>The fundamental difference is that these social media platforms are owned by tech giants in the free world, while WeChat is not. But citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and the exchange of information should be paramount – and need to be guaranteed.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://brill.com/display/title/63429">Digital Transnationalism: Chinese-Language Media in Australia</a> is published by Wanning Sun and Haiqing Yu (Brill).</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This book project was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, “Chinese-language Digital/Social Media in Australia: Rethinking Soft Power” (DP180100663). </span></em></p>Chinese Australians use WeChat for everything from paying bills and attending funerals, to helping community members in need. Banning the ‘super sticky’ app would do more harm than good.Wanning Sun, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064392023-05-31T21:26:23Z2023-05-31T21:26:23ZDaniel Penny’s GiveSendGo campaign: Crowdfunding primarily benefits the most privileged<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528707/original/file-20230528-147502-41rsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=315%2C0%2C3079%2C2254&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Daniel Penny, centre, is walked by New York Police Department detectives out of a Manhattan precinct in May 2023. He was charged with manslaughter in the death of Jordan Neely.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jeenah Moon)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A former United States Marine was recently charged with second-degree manslaughter <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/05/20/daniel-penny-breaks-silence-on-jordan-neely-nyc-subway-death/">for fatally choking a 30-year-old Black man, Jordan Neely, on a New York subway train</a>. </p>
<p>A GiveSendGo <a href="https://www.givesendgo.com/daniel_penny">crowdfunding campaign</a> has raised over $2.8 million from 57,000 donations for Daniel Penny’s legal expenses. It’s the <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/marine-vet-daniel-penny-givesendgo-legal-defense-fund-sites-second-biggest-campaign">second largest</a> fundraiser on that platform. </p>
<p>While many people on the left have <a href="https://twitter.com/FredTJoseph/status/1657731710824456195">expressed dismay</a> at the success of this fundraiser, GiveSendGo isn’t necessarily wrong to host it. </p>
<p>What’s more objectionable about this campaign isn’t so much that it helps someone defend himself in court but what it demonstrates about the larger, and highly inequitable, enterprise of crowdfunding itself.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1657566582510350336"}"></div></p>
<h2>Violent crime ban</h2>
<p>Penny’s fundraiser was likely created on GiveSendGo rather than the much larger and better known GoFundMe website because GoFundMe <a href="https://medium.com/gofundme-stories/gofundme-policy-on-fundraisers-for-the-legal-defense-of-violent-crimes-975aff8ba5f6">has a policy</a> against allowing fundraisers for the legal defence of people accused of violent crimes. </p>
<p>After Illinois teenager Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with the death of two Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, GoFundMe announced a policy banning campaigns for the “<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/c/terms">legal defence of alleged financial and violent crimes</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A round-faced dark-haired young man closes his eyes tightly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528708/original/file-20230528-158323-uyhxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kyle Rittenhouse closes his eyes and cries as he is found not guilty on all counts in Kenosha, Wis., in November 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://time.com/6150317/givesendgo-trucker-convoy-canada-profits/">This has made GiveSendGo a home</a> for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/13/daniel-penny-jordan-neely-defense-fund">right-wing legal causes</a>, including legal defence funds for Rittenhouse, police officers accused of homicide, Jan. 6 rioters, Canada’s so-called Freedom Convoy activists and, most recently, Penny. </p>
<p>In many cases these fundraisers have been enormously successful, raising hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-gofundme-violating-its-own-terms-of-service-on-the-freedom-convoy-176147">Is GoFundMe violating its own terms of service on the 'freedom convoy?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are many compelling reasons to condemn the kinds of crowdfunding campaigns that GiveSendGo often hosts. Its lax moderation policies have made it home to a wide range of activities and organizations that spread <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-research-finds-extremists-and-bigots-raise-millions-dollars-through">hate and bigotry, harming specific groups</a>. </p>
<p>But helping people accused of violent crimes to defend themselves in court is a different matter. Legal defence and due process in the courts are a basic civil right. While many of us find Penny’s actions horrific and welcome the charge of manslaughter against him, it’s his right to defend himself in court and to access legal counsel to do so.</p>
<h2>Unfair advantage</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, Penny’s fundraiser shows crowdfunding is a wildly unfair way of securing this and other rights. </p>
<p>It was initiated by his legal team even before charges were laid against him. He has benefited from the politicization of his actions and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/nyregion/daniel-penny-jordan-neely-conservative.html">wide support on the political right</a>, including calls to support the fundraiser from politicians like <a href="https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/1657212176178855939">Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis</a> and Republican congressman <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1657145179306950657">Matt Gaetz</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1660243054329036801"}"></div></p>
<p>After Penny was charged with manslaughter, funds began pouring into the 24-year-old’s campaign, helped by exposure on mainstream and social media. As a result, Penny will have the finest legal defence money can buy, likely with ample money left over.</p>
<p>This isn’t the case for the vast majority of people accused of crimes — violent or otherwise — who are equally deserving of effective legal counsel. </p>
<p>Most crowdfunding campaigns <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13568">fall well short of their goals</a>. White beneficiaries generally <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soab076">fare better</a> than Black and other racialized minorities, and people in relatively wealthy and well-educated communities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229760">raise more money</a> than those in less affluent areas. </p>
<p>All campaigners rely on networks of donors for support. People with more privileged networks can expect better outcomes than people in positions of greater relative need. </p>
<h2>Campaigns with no support</h2>
<p>What this means is that crowdfunding isn’t a fair means for people accused of violent crimes to pay for their legal defence.</p>
<p>For every Daniel Penny or Kyle Rittenhouse, there are thousands of campaigns that get little or no public support. </p>
<p>Perhaps their alleged crimes are abhorrent and people would have no interest in financially supporting those accused of them. But the bottom line is that some of these people are innocent of the crimes they’re accused of and, regardless, everyone is deserving of an effective legal defence. </p>
<p>In the United States and most other democracies, all people in principle have access to public defenders and their basic right to legal due process is secured in this way. But the reality is that public defenders are often <a href="https://stateline.org/2022/06/21/public-defenders-were-scarce-before-covid-its-much-worse-now/">under-resourced</a>, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/if-you-care-about-freedom-you-should-be-asking-why-we-dont-fund-our-public-defender-systems">overburdened</a>, and struggle to provide their clients with effective counsel even with their best efforts. </p>
<p>In other cases, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/is-this-the-worst-place-to-be-poor-and-charged-with-a-federal-crime">these defenders fail</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/17/poor-rely-public-defenders-too-overworked">outright</a> in their duties to their clients. </p>
<p>That means a defendant with a multi-million-dollar legal fund is in a wildly different position than the much larger mass of people navigating public defender systems. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="College graduates in blue robes hold up anti-racism signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528709/original/file-20230528-201140-yysxz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">College graduates hold signs reading ‘A Black child was lynched yesterday! Jordan Neely’ and ‘Stand up, Fight Back, Black People Under Attack’ as U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at Howard University’s commencement in Washington, D.C., in May 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reputational damage</h2>
<p>GoFundMe’s decision to ban campaigns for the legal defence of people accused of violent crimes was likely driven by reputational concerns rather than principle. </p>
<p>It’s understandable that a company that brands itself as <a href="https://medium.com/gofundme-stories/how-gofundme-will-accelerate-progress-towards-our-vision-to-be-the-most-helpful-place-in-the-world-b1e60c95009e">the most helpful place in the world</a> doesn’t want to invite criticism for hosting high-profile campaigns for police officers who killed Black Americans during arrests, political insurrectionists and people who shoot racial justice protesters. </p>
<p>We can question the priorities and values of donors who enthusiastically support primarily white defendants accused of violence against protesters and people experiencing mental health crises while ignoring others in need. </p>
<p>But helping people secure due process in the courts is a noble goal, as are crowdfunding campaigns that help pay for medical care, housing and education. </p>
<p>The problem is that crowdfunding operates largely as a popularity contest, distributing help in deeply inequitable ways. That, among other things, is what Penny’s campaign reveals: Leaving it up to the public to pick who should have access to basic rights leads to deeply unfair outcomes. </p>
<p>If people on the left and right can agree that a legal defence is something everyone deserves, then we should also agree that crowdfunding isn’t the way to secure this right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Snyder receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Greenwall Foundation. </span></em></p>Helping people secure due process in the courts is a noble goal. But the problem with crowdfunding campaigns is that they largely operate as popularity contests.Jeremy Snyder, Professor, Health Sciences, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2053842023-05-28T20:06:27Z2023-05-28T20:06:27ZFar from undermining democracy, The Voice will pluralise and enrich Australia’s democratic conversation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527618/original/file-20230523-23-trurlw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cheryl Axleby reads the Uluru Statement from the Heart outside South Australia’s Parliament in Adelaide on March 26, after SA becomes the first state to legislate for an Indigenous Voice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Turner/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does the proposal for a Voice to Parliament prefigure a distinctive conception of democracy for Australia? A steady drumbeat of criticism to date has been that it will, instead, undermine our liberal democratic institutions.</p>
<p>One version of this concern is that an Indigenous Voice violates the principle of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/02/liberals-accused-of-flirting-with-far-right-fringe-after-sky-news-show-where-indigenous-voice-compared-to-apartheid">equal citizenship</a> and equality before the law. Another is that it introduces a divisive form of <a href="https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/opinion/voice-a-dagger-to-the-heart-of-liberalism/">racial politics</a> into our public life. Some claim it will have little impact on improving the lives of Indigenous people. Yet others say it will have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7w7tgDccx0">too much power</a>. </p>
<p>A significant part of the debate has been carried out — so far, at least — in a negative tone, and even by some of its supporters. The focus has been on what the Voice won’t do and what its limits are, and less about what it can do. </p>
<p>Of course, the Yes campaign is only just beginning. And there have been powerful statements of support from different sections of the community. State governments, sporting codes, companies, and community organisations have expressed their support in various ways. </p>
<p>However, I want to place the proposal for a Voice into a broader context of democratic innovation and renewal. Taken in isolation, claims about whether the Voice should make “representations” only to Parliament, or also to “executive government”, can seem rather arcane and confusing. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-voice-isnt-apartheid-or-a-veto-over-parliament-this-misinformation-is-undermining-democratic-debate-205474">The Voice isn't apartheid or a veto over parliament – this misinformation is undermining democratic debate</a>
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<p>Concerns about judicial activism and the rule of law, detached from a broader account of how the interplay between law and politics works in a representative democracy, can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-if-the-government-goes-against-the-advice-of-the-voice-to-parliament-200517">misleading</a>. We are not, for example, as a result of the Voice, on the verge of a massive transfer of power to the High Court, as just about every credible legal commentator has made clear. </p>
<p>The American democratic theorist <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey/">John Dewey</a> said that “the public is a collective called forth by experience of common problems”. </p>
<p>And the way that democratic societies deal with common problems is through public conversation — through what political theorists call “public reasoning”. </p>
<p>The Australian public is being called forth through the referendum process to address the unresolved status of Indigenous peoples in our body politic. We need a richer account of democracy within which to locate the proposal for a Voice to raise the quality of our debate about it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus react after the introduction of the bill to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strat Islander Voice in the House of Representatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Distinctive qualities</h2>
<p>What is distinctive about the Voice is both its democratic pedigree and its democratic character. Although there are reasonable questions about how much more democratic it could have been, the emergence of the proposal for the Voice from community led dialogues across Australia lends it strong democratic credence. </p>
<p>And at the heart of it is a mechanism for improving the quality of decision making about matters that affect Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>The desire to anchor the Voice in the constitution is intended both to protect it from being subject to the whims of electoral politics, and to mark the special place Indigenous peoples have in our history. </p>
<p>There is both a forward looking and remedial aspect to this form of recognition. Given the persistent gap in life prospects between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples over decades, we know our existing institutions are not working. But equally, given the complexity of these issues, and the ongoing legacies of colonial dispossession, we need to find ways to keep working through these challenges together. </p>
<p>The proposal is also unique globally. In Canada, <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/index.html">the Constitution Act of 1982</a> recognised “existing” Aboriginal treaty rights, resulting in a long march through the courts to figure out exactly what that means. In the United States, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/enrd/timeline-event/federal-trust-doctrine-first-described-supreme-court">“domestic dependent</a> nation status of Indian nations, formulated by the Supreme Court in the 19th century, has meant, again, that the courts have led the conversation. In New Zealand, the establishment of the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> (a commission of inquiry, chaired by a judge) and reserved parliamentary seats for Maori, has resulted in a very different kind of political process for resolving purported breaches of the treaty. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-and-myth-why-the-treaty-of-waitangi-remains-such-a-bloody-difficult-subject-202038">History and myth: why the Treaty of Waitangi remains such a ‘bloody difficult subject’</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The proposed Voice to Parliament, on the other hand, is seeking to anchor Indigenous perspectives in the constitution, but also at the heart of our democratic institutions. </p>
<p>So, what is the best way of conceiving of the kind of democracy that I think the Voice is calling for? </p>
<p>One of the fundamental values underpinning democracy is political equality. But what kind of political equality? The idea of equality appealed to by many critics of the Voice is too simplistic. Often, it’s a claim that equal treatment means the <em>same</em> treatment, in every circumstance. </p>
<p>But our legal and political institutions already make sense of equality in much richer ways. To treat someone equally requires that we answer at least two further questions: equal in what respect? And to what extent do their circumstances require further consideration in figuring out how to treat them equally?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527617/original/file-20230523-14061-5n2cn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What is the best way of conceiving of the kind of democracy that the Voice is calling for?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Koch/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are two elements to what I’ll call <em>democratic</em> political equality. </p>
<p>The first are those rights that citizens need to protect them from the harms that both the state and society can do. These include the classic protections of freedom of assembly, of religion, of speech, of property and bodily integrity. </p>
<p>The second element, however, and too often neglected, is the positive freedoms associated with participation in public life. We can only ever truly secure our freedoms when we share equally in the power being exercised over us. Citizens need to have the opportunity to shape the laws to which they are subject; in short, they must be empowered. </p>
<p>Most importantly, as leading democratic theorists such as Jurgen Habermas and Danielle Allen have argued, these public and private freedoms are mutually dependent: you can’t fully realise one without the other. Thus democracy, on this reading, is instrumentally valuable — it protects us from harms and enables us to pursue our own interests. But it is also intrinsically valuable — it helps us lead better lives by empowering us to shape the society within which we live. </p>
<h2>‘Public reasoning’</h2>
<p>Another aspect underpinning the kind of democracy the Voice is calling for is what I referred to above as "public reasoning”. Put simply, in a democracy, you solve problems through public conversation. But the terms of these conversations — who participates and how, as well as the kinds of reasons one can or shouldn’t appeal to — matter. </p>
<p>It’s not that citizens engage as if they were in a philosophy seminar, or in a court of law. Rather, it’s that we agree to resolve our disagreements, or continue to live with them, as best we can, through dialogue. These conversations will often be difficult and frustrating, as well as incomplete and disorienting. But the spirit driving them, ultimately, must be one of mutual respect and persuasion, rather than the exercise of arbitrary power. </p>
<p>However, citizens are unequally positioned relative to each other in terms of how they can participate in these public conversations. Hence why the positive freedoms I mentioned above are so important to secure. </p>
<p>Some have more access to resources than others. Some are more eloquent or forceful than others. Majority cultures tend to shape public discussions and institutions in both explicit and implicit ways that can disadvantage minorities.</p>
<p>Thus, we need to design democratic institutions so that they are responsive to the deep pluralism of our society. We need to multiply the ways in which diverse citizens and groups can participate in public debate and policy making. This cuts against technocratic forms of rule, as well as rule by simply majority. </p>
<p>I think this is the best interpretation of what “making representations” to parliament and the executive in the draft constitutional amendment means and why it should be preserved. It’s about creating a mechanism for pluralising and enriching Australia’s democratic conversation. It’s not about identity politics. It’s not intended as a conversation stopper. </p>
<p>Finally, this way of conceiving of democracy should shape our conception of democratic citizenship. It’s not simply a legal status, and nor is it mainly about voting and obeying the law. Instead, citizenship becomes a richer, more capacious ideal. </p>
<p>According to this richer ideal, democratic citizenship also involves the development of forms of self-awareness and self-formation through a wide range of deliberations about our existing institutions. Our sense of common interests, for example, can expand as we encounter new claims, or re-interpretations of existing ones, that we were previously unaware of. Pluralising public reason creates room for democratic innovation. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527608/original/file-20230523-23-qpdoyq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Deva Woodly, in her <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reckoning-9780197603956?cc=au&lang=en&#">brilliant analysis</a> of the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, uses the analogy of “swailing” — or what we know as the Aboriginal land management practice of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/painting-with-fire-how-northern-australia-developed-one-of-the-worlds-best-bushfire-management-programs-205113">cool burning</a>” — to analogise the kind of renewal that social movements generate for fragile democratic environments. </p>
<p>Woodly points out how these movements draw out the contradictions between ideals and political realities, and demonstrate that democracy is always an incomplete process. The social movements that have led to the Uluru statement — going back over decades — have provided a kind of democratic cool burning for Australian public discourse. </p>
<h2>Democratic all the way down</h2>
<p>In proposing a new mechanism for enhancing Indigenous voices in our political institutions, the Voice is appealing to the interdependence between public and private freedoms, as well as the value of government through public reasoning. </p>
<p>Note that framing the Voice in this way also offers us a means of assessing how best to design and implement the details, if the constitutional amendment is approved. </p>
<p>Democratic values cut in both directions. The way that local and regional Indigenous communities select and engage with their Voice representatives, as well as those in Canberra, will be critical. </p>
<p>The norms that govern those processes will need to reflect the broader democratic intent of the Voice. The <a href="https://ncq.org.au/resources/indigenous-voice-co-design-process-final-report-to-australian-government/#:%7E:text=The%20Indigenous%20Voice%20Co%2Ddesign,the%20Australian%20Government%20and%20Parliament.">final report</a> of the Indigenous co-design process is a good place to start for exploring these different possibilities. </p>
<p>Let’s return to some of the criticisms we began with: Is the Voice introducing division where there is unity, racial categories where there is neutrality, and inequality where there is equality? I think the answer is clearly no. </p>
<p>First, the social, economic, and political baseline we are starting from is radically unequal. Almost everyone agrees that the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ wellbeing and that of the rest of the population is shameful. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-people-in-the-nt-receive-just-16-of-the-medicare-funding-of-an-average-australian-183210">First Nations people in the NT receive just 16% of the Medicare funding of an average Australian</a>
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<p>Second, it’s not Indigenous people who have insisted on introducing racial categories into our politics, but rather successive Australian governments and the legal and political institutions that arose from settlement. It was the High Court, after all, that drew on the Racial Discrimination Act, among other sources, to remove long entrenched legal obstacles to the recognition of native title in <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/mabo-case">Mabo</a>. </p>
<p>And it was the Australian government that suspended the application of that act when it legislated the Northern Territory “<a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/social-justice-report-2007-chapter-3-northern-territory-emergency-response-intervention">Intervention</a>” in 2007. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527616/original/file-20230523-27-3hohcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A 2008 protest march in Sydney against the NT Intervention. The Australian government suspended the application of the Racial Discrimination Act when it legislated for the Intervention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Race, in other words, has been a primary tool of the state over many years, not the social movements that have sought justice for Aboriginal people. The Voice isn’t a proposal for reintroducing racial categories into our civic identity, despite what <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-22/peter-dutton-says-indigenous-voice-will-re-racialise-the-country/102378700">Peter Dutton</a> recently claimed. In fact, quite the opposite: it is an attempt to reconfigure that identity so that it no longer reflects the racial injustices of the past (and the present). </p>
<p>This democratic framing can also help us think through a deep criticism of the Voice from the left. Some have argued that nothing less than a treaty, rather than a deliberative body, is required to fully disrupt the colonial edifice of the Australian state. The Voice, on this reading, is a form of entrapment; it naturalises settler law and the colonial political order. </p>
<p>However, if we see the constitutional recognition of an Indigenous Voice in democratic terms (and assuming it can indeed reflect the diverse voices of Indigenous peoples), then it offers a practical way of working through these profound questions. </p>
<p>The Uluru statement is, after all, rooted in a claim of continuing sovereignty. Nothing about the referendum process requires a repudiation of that.</p>
<p>However, the establishment of a constitutionally recognised deliberative body puts in place a mechanism for an ongoing conversation between peoples that could, over time, reconfigure these relations.</p>
<p>It offers a means for enlarging and deepening our public reasoning about not only the consequences of the past, but our collective aspirations for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan Ivison has received funding from the Australian Research Council for projects related to the themes of this article. </span></em></p>We need a richer account of democracy within which to locate the Voice, to lift the quality of public debate about it.Duncan Ivison, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2063912023-05-26T12:27:25Z2023-05-26T12:27:25ZEuropean soccer is having another reckoning over racism – is it time to accept the problem goes beyond bad fans?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528427/original/file-20230525-15-uk63av.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C7679%2C5131&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vinícius Júnior is making the point, but are soccer's governing bosses getting it?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vinicius-junior-of-real-madrid-reacts-after-receiving-news-photo/1492456442?adppopup=true">Aitor Alcalde Colomer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After suffering <a href="https://apnews.com/article/vinicius-junior-racism-effigy-arrests-bc445cb4a08441238d1975bd44e137a6">months of racial abuse</a> on the field <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/26/football/vinicius-jr-effigy-real-madrid-atletico-spt-intl/index.html">and off</a>, Brazilian soccer star Vinícius Júnior had enough.</p>
<p>On May 21, 2023, the Real Madrid forward – commonly seen <a href="https://www.goal.com/en-us/lists/ballon-dor-2023-power-rankings/blt51e9eccbef548b72#cs2b89f3769dac96ed">as one of the best soccer players</a> in the world – brought a halt to a game at Valencia’s Mestalla Stadium, pointing to fans who were making blatantly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/may/21/vinicius-junior-sent-off-for-brawl-after-alleged-racism-by-valencia-fans">racist remarks and gestures</a>. </p>
<p>He later made it clear that this was not an isolated event: “It was not the first time, nor the second, nor the third. Racism is normal in La Liga,” <a href="https://twitter.com/vinijr/status/1660379570149683200">he tweeted</a> in reference to the Spanish top division. “The competition considers it normal, the federation considers it normal and the rivals encourage it.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://my.vanderbilt.edu/johnsloop/">soccer scholar</a> whose latest book includes analysis of how players, fans and the game’s governing bodies have <a href="https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817394547/soccers-neoliberal-pitch/">responded to the Black Lives Matter</a> movement, I believe the latest incident points to how difficult it is to change fan behavior when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2013.801262">racism remains institutionalized</a> in the sport itself. While it is true that teams and leagues have made progress in signaling their lack of tolerance for racist behavior, there remain systemic problems working against real progress – not least the <a href="https://andscape.com/features/where-are-the-black-managers-in-european-club-soccer/">lack of Black representation</a> in management positions.</p>
<h2>Deep roots of soccer racism</h2>
<p>Soccer has a <a href="https://brockpress.com/2023/04/11/soccer-and-its-long-history-with-racism/">long-established racism problem</a>. Black players throughout the decades attest to both abuse by fans – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/learning/lesson-of-the-day-when-the-monkey-chants-are-for-you-a-soccer-stars-view-of-racist-abuse.html">monkey chants are still common</a> during games in parts of Europe – as well as more subtle forms of discrimination, such as <a href="https://thesporting.blog/blog/jack-leslie-dropped-from-the-england-squad-for-being-black">being left out of national squads</a> or <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12097859/John-Barnes-says-black-football-managers-unfairly-treated-remarkable-comment-race.html">overlooked for coaching positions</a>.</p>
<p>Black Brazilians such as Vinícius and <a href="https://theconversation.com/pele-a-global-superstar-and-cultural-icon-who-put-passion-at-the-heart-of-soccer-197097">stretching back to Pelé</a> have been subjected to racism both overseas and at home. Indeed, as <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/08/how-soccer-explains-world-2/">soccer writer Franklin Foer</a> has pointed out, in the early days of Brazilian soccer Black people were not allowed to play for professional clubs or the national team. Even when finally accepted, some of the star Black players like <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/70531-profiles-of-the-great-and-good-arthur-friedenreich-the-original-black-pearl">Arthur Freidenreich</a> and Joaquim Prado would <a href="https://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/01/10/how-football-and-race-shaped-brazil/">straighten their hair and attempt to lighten their skin</a> in the hope of gaining popularity.</p>
<p>While there has been great change since such times, the roots of subtle and overt racism facing Black soccer players run deep – be it in their home countries or playing for prestigious European clubs.</p>
<h2>Soccer’s Black Lives Matter moment</h2>
<p>While one can argue that there have always been minor attempts to address racism in soccer, it has only really been in the last decade that such efforts have gained steam. And it has been geared very much toward changing attitudes among fans.</p>
<p>For example, in England, the Football Association has long partnered with anti-racist group <a href="https://www.kickitout.org/">Kick It Out</a> to create programs and punishments for racist fan behavior. Meanwhile, <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2755921-why-spanish-football-needs-to-do-more-to-combat-racism">the Royal Spanish Football Association</a> has codes for applying financial penalties against clubs with racist fans.</p>
<p>Such anti-racist efforts and messaging increased as part of a more general societal reckoning over racism after the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html">killing in the U.S. of George Floyd</a> by a police officer in 2020.</p>
<p>Soccer authorities – usually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/sports/soccer/german-player-protest-armbands-world-cup.html">wary of political statements</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-fifa-protests/politics-and-protest-in-sport-have-fifas-rules-changed-idUSKBN2BI2FN">quick to punish players</a> who display protest slogans on shirts – by and large <a href="https://www.si.com/soccer/2020/06/02/george-floyd-tributes-players-fifa-statement">allowed players free expression</a> in regard to Floyd’s killing and the protests it sparked.</p>
<p>Indeed, after restarting a pandemic-struck season in June 2020, the English Premier League promoted <a href="https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37586955/premier-league-display-no-room-racism-black-lives-matter-kits">an active Black Lives Matter campaign</a>. This included “Black Lives Matter” patches on uniforms – although <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/black-lives-matter-premier-league-22662960">patches were later amended</a> to read “No Room for Racism” – and allowing the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53098516">taking of the knee</a> before games. Three years on, many players and teams <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soccer/news/why-premier-league-teams-players-taking-knee/khhgbxnprt5ngoz5jaezdjtu">still take a knee</a> before games throughout England.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Soccer players in yellow and blue and white, and a referee in black, all kneel on the grass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528420/original/file-20230525-29-zjbd8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Players and officials in the U.K. regularly ‘take the knee’ before games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/referee-tim-robinson-and-players-take-a-knee-ahead-of-the-news-photo/1247335754?adppopup=true">John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it hasn’t stopped the abuse. In 2020, while players on the pitch were presenting a unified front against anti-Black racism, British Home Office Minister Susan Williams observed that racist incidents had risen for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jan/30/football-related-racist-incidents-sharp-rise-police-kick-it-out">third year in a row</a>.</p>
<p>Soccer leagues in southern Europe <a href="https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817394547/soccers-neoliberal-pitch/">tended to leave it to clubs and individuals</a> to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement, rather than having any blanket policies akin to that of the English Football Association.</p>
<p>But again, it appears to have had little effect on crowd racism.</p>
<p>Italian soccer continues to garner a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-2021-and-italian-football-is-still-racist-af">reputation for racism</a> among its fan base. While examples are numerous, the most recent cases include <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/samuel-umtiti-lazio-racism-infantino-28878713">verbal attacks against Lecce defender</a> Samuel Umtiti and forward Lameck Banda <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/football/gianni-infantino-italy-racism-football-spt-intl/index.html">while playing at Lazio</a>, and racists taunts against Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2023/4/5/romelu-lukaku-racism-inter-milan-juventus-italian-football">after he scored</a> against Juventus in a Copa Italia semifinal.</p>
<p>In Spain, after the latest Vinícius incident, football federation chief Luis Rubiales <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/spanish-football-admits-it-has-racism-problem-after-vinicius-incident-2023-05-22/">acknowledged that racism</a> was a problem in the league. It would be hard not to: The abuse of May 21 was <a href="https://onefootball.com/en/news/if-vinicius-tells-me-he-doesnt-want-to-play-ill-leave-too-real-madrid-star-after-more-racism-37530066">at least the 10th</a> racist incident against the Brazilian star that Real Madrid has reported to the league this season.</p>
<p>The diplomatic fallout of the Vinícius abuse – Brazil <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/spanish-football-admits-it-has-racism-problem-after-vinicius-incident-2023-05-22/">summoned the Spanish ambassador</a>, and Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/christ-redeemer-statue-displays-support-vinicius-jr-against-racism-2023-05-22/">was shrouded in darkness</a> in protest – has reignited discussion of what action needs to be taken to stamp out racism in the game.</p>
<p>Spanish police have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/vinicius-junior-racism-effigy-arrests-bc445cb4a08441238d1975bd44e137a6">made several arrests</a> over Vinícius’ abuse. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65691729#:%7E:text=Valencia%20have%20also%20been%20fined,that%20part%20of%20the%20sanction.">La Liga has fined Valencia</a> – the team Real Madrid was playing – 45,000 euros (US$48,000) and closed a portion of the stadium for the next five games.</p>
<p>But given how persistent crowd racism has been in the face of numerous attempts to challenge it, I believe it is fair to ask if such disciplinary actions will have any real impact now.</p>
<h2>Counter-cosmopolitanism</h2>
<p>Continued racism in European soccer comes despite a rise in soccer’s “cosmopolitanism” culture. Prior to the 1990s, Black players in the top European leagues were relatively few and far between – especially in countries where nonwhite players <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-apartheid-european-racism-and-pele-helped-cultivate-a-culture-of-diversity-in-us-soccer-that-endures-into-the-mls-197172">would fear being subjected to racist taunts</a> from their own supporters, as well as the opposition’s.</p>
<p>But modern-day fans have long become accustomed to supporting a racially diverse team. So why does racism in stadiums persist? Political scientist and sociologists <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/polisci/people/faculty/andymark.html">Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann</a> point out in “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691162034/gaming-the-world">Gaming the World</a>” that the rise in cosmopolitanism on the field is not reflected in the stands – that is, in European leagues, the makeup of fan bases is not as diverse as that of the team they go to cheer on. Markovits and Rensmann argue that what we are witnessing in the stands is a kind of “counter-cosmopolitanism” in which the “other” is treated with anger and suspicion because they are deemed to threaten the stable sense of identity of some fans.</p>
<p>If the racial makeup of teams is not reflective of the fan base, it also isn’t reflected in management, or among the people who govern the sport.</p>
<p>Analysis <a href="https://andscape.com/features/where-are-the-black-managers-in-european-club-soccer/">conducted in May 2022</a> found that of the 98 clubs that played in the five most prestigious European leagues – the English Premier League, La Liga, and Italy’s Seria A, along with Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue 1 – only two had Black managers. La Liga had none, <a href="https://www.transfermarkt.us/primera-division/trainervergleich/wettbewerb/ES1">and still doesn’t</a>.</p>
<h2>Failing the Sterling standard</h2>
<p>As England striker Raheem Sterling <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/09/raheem-sterling-english-football-black-managers-campbell-cole">noted in a 2020 interview</a>: “There’s something like 500 players in the Premier League and a third of them are Black, and we have no representation of us in the hierarchy, no representation of us in the coaching staffs.”</p>
<p>While there is certainly some merit in the actions being taken in Spain to address behavior in the stands in the aftermath of the latest Vinícius incident, there is an argument that it is too little, too late. Moreover, it does little to address more institutionalized racism in the game. And to date, anti-racism programs and fines have failed to stamp out racism in soccer.</p>
<p>As Sterling noted, “When there’s more Black people in positions, when I can have someone from a Black background … (to) be able to go to in the [Football Association] with a problem I have within the club – these will be the times that I know that change is happening.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John M Sloop does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anti-racist programs and fines have failed to end racism in European soccer. Part of the problem is that Black players have little representation higher up the sport’s hierarchy.John M Sloop, Professor of Communication Studies, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2045202023-05-18T12:41:53Z2023-05-18T12:41:53ZFrom sit-ins in the 1960s to uprisings in the new millennium, Harry Belafonte served as a champion of youth activism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526776/original/file-20230517-21-rcxyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harry Belafonte used his personal wealth to support young activists throughout his life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-singer-songwriter-and-civil-rights-activist-harry-news-photo/1393509581?adppopup=true">Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of all the contributions for which Harry Belafonte will be remembered, perhaps none is more enduring than the celebrated entertainer’s lifelong support for youth activism.</p>
<p>This support can be traced back to Belafonte’s early involvement in the Black student-led protests of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, but it didn’t end there. Using his social stature and personal wealth from a career that once made him the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/arts/music/harry-belafonte-dead.html">most highly paid Black performer in history</a>,” Belafonte also <a href="https://rockthebells.com/articles/harry-belafonte-hip-hop-beat-street/">helped establish hip-hop</a> as a dominant cultural force in the 1980s and spoke out in support of Black uprisings against police brutality in the 2010s in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore.</p>
<p>As a historian who has <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469661445/shelter-in-a-time-of-storm/">examined Black student activism from the civil rights era</a> to today, I see Belafonte, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/arts/music/harry-belafonte-dead.html">passed away on April 25, 2023</a>, as one of America’s preeminent “<a href="https://guides.osu.edu/africana/raceman">race men</a>,” social justice warriors and elder statesmen for youth-led racial justice movements.</p>
<h2>Born in a new Black era</h2>
<p>Born in Harlem in 1927, Belafonte was immersed in the politics and art of the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/the-new-negro-movement.html">New Negro Era</a>, an era that gave birth to radically new interpretations of the Black aesthetic and launched new efforts toward Black liberation.</p>
<p>As the modern Civil Rights Movement unfolded in post-World War II America, Belafonte joined the ranks of Black entertainers who sought to use their platforms to advance the cause. But it was the direct-action phase of the movement, pioneered by Black college students throughout the South at the start of the 1960s, that elevated the movement to a more intense confrontation with Jim Crow America.</p>
<p><a href="https://civilrightstrail.com/experience/student-led-sit-ins-across-the-south-lead-to-desegregated-businesses/">Sit-ins</a>, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-freedom-riders-then-and-now-45351758/">Freedom Rides</a> and <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jail-no-bail/">jail-ins</a> orchestrated by organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee – or <a href="https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/the-story-of-sncc/">SNCC</a> – and the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/congress-racial-equality-core">Congress of Racial Equality</a> brought Belafonte deeper into the orbit of the freedom struggle. Belafonte once said he admired the young activists for the “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/10860/my-song-by-harry-belafonte-with-michael-shnayerson/">power of their independence</a>.”</p>
<h2>A unifying force</h2>
<p>One of the tensest moments for the young activists was the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freedom-rides-1961/">Freedom Rides</a> that brought waves of young Black college students into the Deep South to challenge the legality of segregation in interstate busing. Many of them ended up as victims of police brutality in the infamous <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mississippi-state-penitentiary-at-parchman-1901/">Parchman Farm Penitentiary</a> in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Not only did Belafonte make a generous donation to their cause, but his willingness to support the activists strengthened their admiration of him.</p>
<p>“Folks were just overwhelmed,” <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ready-for-Revolution/Stokely-Carmichael/9780684850047">recalled civil rights organizer Kwame Ture</a>, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, “and I believe that marked the beginning of Bro. Belafonte’s long relationship – as adviser, benefactor, and big brother – to the young freedom-fighting organization.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525301/original/file-20230510-23-llt9h1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harry Belafonte being interviewed by a student at Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., year unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas F. Holgate Library at Bennettt College</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As students courageously languished in Mississippi’s sweltering prison, they converted Belafonte’s signature song into a freedom anthem. The calypso singer’s hit single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7M0Hx_1D8">“Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)</a>” echoed through Southern jails as students arrested for challenging Jim Crow laws <a href="http://civilrightssongs.blogspot.com/2014/12/willie-peacock-calypso-freedom-freedoms.html">repurposed the song with new lyrics:</a></p>
<p><em>Hey, I took a little trip on a Greyhound bus.</em></p>
<p><em>Yeah!</em></p>
<p><em>Freedom comin’ and it won’t be long.</em></p>
<p><em>Well, to fight segregation this we must.</em></p>
<p><em>Yeah, Freedom comin’ and it won’t be long.</em></p>
<h2>Financed the SNCC retreat to Africa</h2>
<p>The apex of Belafonte’s involvement with the SNCC was his facilitation of a <a href="https://snccdigital.org/events/sncc-delegation-travels-to-africa/">sojourn to the West African nation of Guinea in September of 1964</a>. </p>
<p>Sensing the burnout and frustration that was brewing within the organization due to its growing dissatisfaction with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xNNrgesvx8">moderation and stall tactics</a> from both the liberal left and conservative right, Belafonte organized and paid for a three-week sabbatical. Eleven SNCC activists, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-lewis-traded-the-typical-college-experience-for-activism-arrests-and-jail-cells-143219">John Lewis</a>, <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/fannie-lou-hamer/">Fannie Lou Hamer</a> and Stokely Carmichael, made the trip. Belafonte introduced them to Guinea’s political dignitaries, including <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/toure-ahmed-sekou-1922-1984/">President Sekou Toure</a>. The trip proved critical in sharpening the SNCC’s focus on the potential for Black empowerment back in the States – a revelation that would greatly shape the coming Black Power Movement that unfolded in 1966. </p>
<p>Ideological tensions concerning the direction of the Civil Rights Movement after 1965 <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Pillar-of-Fire/Taylor-Branch/9780684848099">pushed Belafonte closer</a> to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.</p>
<p>However, the politically conscious showman never turned his back on the youth activists who helped to define the decade.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Harry y Belafonte waves to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he leaves civil rights marchers in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526772/original/file-20230517-25-d8dno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singer Harry Belafonte waves to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., right, as he leaves the column of civil rights marchers in Montgomery, Ala., in 1965.</span>
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</figure>
<h2>Supported hip-hop in its early years</h2>
<p>It should not surprise anyone that a man who had a deep affinity for folk music and songs of the people gravitated toward hip-hop as it emerged in the 1970s and 1980s.
Belafonte saw hip-hop as a logical next step in the evolution of Black cultural expression and a vital space for Black militancy. In a 2006 interview, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqL84U3VP4">he declared</a>, “When I hung out up in the South Bronx with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140309032121/http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/page/Afrika_Bambaataa">Afrika Bambaataa</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/grandmaster-melle-mel-mn0000739282/biography">Melle Mel</a>, and watched the dawning of the hip-hop culture, it brought to me a profound sense of a wonderful thing that was in our future.”</p>
<p>Belafonte produced the 1984 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086946/">Beat Street</a>,” a celebration of hip-hop that was critical in introducing the art form to wider audiences. One of the featured artists, Melle Mel of the pioneering hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, <a href="https://rockthebells.com/articles/melle-mel-harry-belafonte-beat-street-breakdown/">recalled that he met with Belafonte</a> prior to penning his verse on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrfO6kW8EIs">soundtrack’s title song, “Beat Street Breakdown</a>. His <a href="https://genius.com/Grandmaster-melle-mel-and-the-furious-five-beat-street-breakdown-lyrics">lyrics</a> reflected his exchange with the civil rights legend: </p>
<p><em>Peoples in terror, the leaders made a error
And now they can’t even look in the mirror
Cause we gotta suffer while things get rougher
And that’s the reason why we got to get tougher</em></p>
<p>Belafonte intensified his backing of hip-hop in later years, whether it was encouraging <a href="https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/harry-belafonte-giant-of-the-arts-and-the-struggle-for-justice-and-democracy/">Fidel Castro to carve out support for Cuban rappers in the 1990s</a>, or through various hip-hop summits that he hosted in an effort to prod and push hip-hop’s <a href="https://www.okayplayer.com/culture/jay-z-harry-belafonte-feud-trayvon-martin.html">most prominent entertainers to be more outspoken</a> on issues related to social justice.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525302/original/file-20230510-15-uz87gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Harry Belafonte with 9th Wonder at one of Belafonte’s hip hop-summits in June 2013.</span>
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</figure>
<h2>Mentored young activists</h2>
<p>In his twilight years, Belafonte continued to mentor youth activists. In the aftermath of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/07/31/631897758/a-look-back-at-trayvon-martins-death-and-the-movement-it-inspired">Trayvon Martin’s</a> killing in 2013, Belafonte visited Tallahassee, Florida, to support the work of the <a href="https://www.wuft.org/news/2013/10/15/who-are-the-dream-defenders/">Dream Defenders</a>, an organization founded by former students from Florida A&M University to, among other things, draw attention to the injustice of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/18/stand-your-ground-laws-us-deaths-racist-violence">Stand Your Ground </a> law that was used to justify Martin’s fatal shooting.</p>
<p>Standing with the students in solidarity, Belafonte <a href="https://www.cityandstatefl.com/first-read/2023/04/remembering-harry-belafontes-visit-dream-defenders-florida-capitol/385633/">told them</a>: "I’m here because I am a part of your history. You called, and I’m here to tell you that those of us who have been in this struggle for over a century are happy to be part of this moment.”</p>
<h2>Embraced Black Lives Matter</h2>
<p>Belafonte’s tireless devotion to human rights perfectly dovetailed into support for the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0016241/">Black Lives Matter movement</a> in the 2010s, as he continued to argue for disruption of political systems that upheld state-sanctioned violence.</p>
<p>Belafonte’s defiance and support for the movement was unwavering. “Radical thought at its best is supposed to make people feel uncomfortable,” Belafonte <a href="https://crosscut.com/2015/10/harry-belafonte-on-black-leadership-and-activism-and-the-importance-of-making-people-uncomfortable">declared in 2015</a>. “We talk about the uprisings in communities like in St. Louis and Baltimore, and it is what protests are supposed to do.”</p>
<p>From the 1960s until Belafonte’s passing, young people across several generations sought him out for wisdom and guidance. His enduring commitment to youth and idealism always made him easy to find.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jelani M. Favors does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Harry Belafonte spent much of his life supporting youth-led movements that fought against racial injustice. A historian explains how.Jelani M. Favors, Professor of History, North Carolina A&T State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015522023-04-26T12:27:41Z2023-04-26T12:27:41ZThe law often shields police officers from accountability – and reinforces policing that harms Black people, homeless people and the mentally ill<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522419/original/file-20230422-2941-mgfo9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C46%2C4422%2C2667&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstrator holds an 'End Police Violence' sign during a protest after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrator-holds-a-end-police-violence-sign-in-front-of-news-photo/1217490145?adppopup=true">Frederic J. Brown/AFP/via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seeking accountability in the brutal police beating death of her son, the mother of Tyre Nichols has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/19/us/tyre-nichols-death-lawsuit-memphis-police/index.html">filed a US$55 million federal lawsuit</a> against the individual officers, the Memphis Police Department and the city of Memphis, Tennessee.</p>
<p>There’s no way to predict the outcome of this lawsuit. But civil suits are by now a familiar tool of grieving families on a familiar quest.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-council-set-to-vote-on-derek-chauvin-brutality-settlements/600266757/">multimillion-dollar settlements</a> by the city of Minneapolis over police use of excessive force and a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/video/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-louisville-metro-police-department-and">Justice Department finding</a> that police in Louisville, Kentucky, routinely violate the constitutional rights of Black people confirm what many have long complained about: that police are unnecessarily violent and violate their rights.</p>
<p>In mid-April 2023, <a href="https://www.minneapolismn.gov/news/2023/april-/settlements/">Minneapolis settled two civil lawsuits against the city’s police department</a>, for nearly $9 million. Similarly, the third anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s March 13, 2020, killing by Louisville police officers brought with it federal validation that officers from Louisville Metro Police Department and Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government often <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-louisville-metro-police-department-and">violate the Constitution and federal law</a> when they interact with Black people.</p>
<p>“It’s heartbreaking to know that everything you’ve been saying from day one has to be said again through this manner; that it took this to even have somebody look into this department,” Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, said after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Justice Department’s findings on March 9, 2023.</p>
<p>Why are Black people so often ignored when it comes to complaints about their interaction with police? And why are police given automatic credibility and shielding from accountability?</p>
<h2>Automatic credibility</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/us/politics/louisville-police-breonna-taylor-justice-dept.html">Louisville</a>, in Minneapolis and across the nation, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/derek-chauvin-george-floyd.html">Black people</a> have complained about police misconduct only to have those complaints ignored while white people’s complaints of misconduct are more likely to be <a href="https://www.chicagoreporter.com/police-misconduct-complaints-by-whites-more-likely-to-be-upheld/">sustained</a>.</p>
<p>One reason for this is that, throughout American society, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674238145">Black people are viewed as criminals</a>. This stereotype encourages <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15377938.2021.1992326">more police encounters</a>, which in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/nyregion/nypd-arrests-race.html">New York City</a>, for example, has led to Black people’s being twice as likely to be stopped by the police. This might also explain why <a href="https://thecrimereport.org/2021/01/14/blacks-overrepresented-in-violent-crime-arrests/">Black people, who are 12.5% of the national population, represent 33% of people arrested for nonfatal violent crimes</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Flanked by two suited women, a gray-haired man in a suit and wearing glasses speaks behind a lectern with the emblem " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522420/original/file-20230422-18-yaxkk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland discusses the findings of the civil rights investigation into police departments in Louisville, Ky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/attorney-general-merrick-garland-with-associate-attorneys-news-photo/1247908774?adppopup=true">Luke Sharrett/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>There’s also a long history of police targeting racial minorities. From Black people in the <a href="https://www.learningforjustice.org/podcasts/teaching-hard-history/jim-crow-era/criminalizing-blackness-prisons-police-and-jim-crow">South</a> and, as I have written about, <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p081149">in the Midwest</a> to Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/871929844/cult-of-glory-reveals-the-dark-history-of-the-texas-rangers">Southwest</a> or <a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-stereotypes-of-the-irish-evolved-from-criminals-to-cops">the Irish</a>, before they were <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780415913843">considered white</a>, in the Northeast, policing and controlling minority groups has often gone hand in hand. </p>
<p>And this history didn’t just fade away as time passed. It became part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-police-officers-arent-colorblind-theyre-infected-by-the-same-anti-black-bias-as-american-society-and-police-in-general-198721">culture of modern policing</a>. This may account for the staggering levels of police misconduct toward Black people. Black men, for example, are more than three times as likely <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/blacks-whites-police-deaths-disparity/">to be killed during a police encounter as white people</a>. Black people are also more likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0858-1">be pulled over by the police</a>.</p>
<p>These racial realities work in concert with cultural myths about police and policing that always <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/police-brutality-shootings-derek-chauvin/672873/">paint them as heroes and good guys</a> who protect us from the bad guys at great risk to their own personal safety. </p>
<p>These cultural myths and the support of the powerful <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapolis-kroll.html">Fraternal Order of Police</a> – an organization made up of U.S. sworn law enforcement officers – justify violent police culture and help to immunize officers against accountability for their conduct.</p>
<p>Taken together, these things set up a hierarchy of credibility that shields police from accountability.</p>
<h2>Shields against accountability</h2>
<p>According to UCLA law professor <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1159278111/police-brutality-shielded-joanna-schwartz">Joanna Schwartz</a>, legal protections like qualified immunity protect police officers from repercussions that stem from abuse. Qualified immunity is a 1967 Supreme Court doctrine that protects police and other government official from frivolous lawsuits. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://eji.org/issues/qualified-immunity/">court rule was designed</a> to reduce the power of the 1871 Klan Act, which empowered citizens to bring lawsuits against police for not protecting them from lynchings.</p>
<p>The law shields police from accountability by requiring that complaints include evidence to show that police conduct was unlawful and that the officer knowingly violated the law that was deemed illegal in a previous case. This legal formula gives police the power to frame interactions in a way that protects them from claims of abuse.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Flowers lay on the ground before hand-drawn images of people killed by police and notes listing their names." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522713/original/file-20230424-18-ubinm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Flowers and pictures lay at a memorial for victims of police violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flowers-and-pictures-lay-at-a-memorial-to-victims-of-police-news-photo/1233472043?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>By claiming their actions were necessary to protect themselves, qualified immunity makes their actions legal and makes holding police accountable nearly impossible. In short, police are given the benefit of doubt and their version of events is taken as truth. </p>
<p>Even when complaints are made against police officers, the municipal attorney, who represents the officers, often doesn’t communicate the complaint to the police department, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/677131/shielded-by-joanna-schwartz/">on the assumption that it’s frivolous</a>. </p>
<h2>The issue is not Black and white</h2>
<p>As a geographer and scholar of African American studies, I use space and place to make sense of police abuse. And what <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p081149">my research</a> demonstrates is that the disproportionate killing of Black people by police happens for two reasons:</p>
<p>1) Black people live <a href="https://now.tufts.edu/2020/06/17/how-racial-segregation-and-policing-intersect-america">in racially segregated communities that are heavily policed</a>. </p>
<p>2) <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/">Black people are viewed as perpetual criminals</a>.</p>
<p>This perspective has allowed me to understand how other groups are also affected by police violence in ways similar to Black Americans.</p>
<p>Homeless people, who are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-01-21/use-of-force-incidents-against-homeless-people-are-up-lapd-reports">heavily policed and seen as criminals</a>, experience disproportionate levels of deadly force, too. In Phoenix, for example, the Justice Department is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2021/aug/05/phoenix-investigation-justice-department-police-abuse">investigating claims of abuse and excessive uses of force</a> against homeless people. The investigation is also inquiring into whether the Phoenix Police Department has a pattern of unconstitutionally <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2021/08/16/homeless-say-phoenix-police-frequently-throw-away-belongings/5543513001/">seizing and disposing of the belongings</a> of people living on the streets.</p>
<p>Police misconduct also affects people with serious mental illness. In Salem, Oregon, for example, a woman called 911 because her son was intoxicated, high and mentally ill. Within minutes, a police officer <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-some-encounters-between-police-and-people-with-mental-illness-can-turn-tragic">burst into their house and shot her son dead</a>, without trying to calm him down or assess the situation. </p>
<p>Police shot a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/09/910975499/autistic-13-year-old-boy-shot-by-salt-lake-city-police">13-year-old boy</a> in Salt Lake City after his mother called 911 because he was experiencing a mental crisis. Fortunately, the boy survived, but the same can’t be said for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-happened-daniel-prude.html">Daniel Prude</a>, whom police in Rochester, New York, killed because of erratic behavior.</p>
<p>Systematic police abuse of Black people and routine misconduct against homeless people and those with serious mental illness make encounters with police officers dangerous and potentially deadly. Giving police automatic credibility and shielding them from accountability will, I believe, perpetuate abusive practice and subsequently <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-misconduct-costs-cities-millions-every-year-but-thats-where-the-accountability-ends/">put municipalities in a never-ending spiral of using taxpayers’ money to settle cases</a> of police misconduct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rashad Shabazz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shielding police from accountability can only lead to more brutality, misconduct – and multimillion-dollar settlements.Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2019002023-04-19T12:45:25Z2023-04-19T12:45:25ZTo understand American politics, you need to move beyond left and right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520636/original/file-20230412-18-9xinwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C6968%2C4000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a more sophisticated way to understand how Americans divide themselves politically.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/close-up-us-election-badges-with-the-national-flag-royalty-free-image/1340786091?phrase=right%20and%20left%20in%20politics%20U.S.%20&adppopup=true">Torsten Asmus/ iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are Americans really as politically polarized as they seem – and everybody says? </p>
<p>It’s definitely true that Democrats and Republicans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034">increasingly hate and fear one another</a>. But this animosity seems to have more to do with tribal loyalty than liberal-versus-conservative <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfy005">disagreements about policy</a>. Our research into what Americans actually want in terms of policy shows that many have strong political views that can’t really be characterized in terms of “right” or “left.” </p>
<p>The media often talks about the American political landscape as if it were a line. Liberal Democrats are on the left, conservative Republicans on the right, and a small sliver of moderate independents are in the middle. But <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/cmjs/about/people/wright.html">political scientists</a> <a href="https://cssh.northeastern.edu/student/sasha-volodarsky/">like us</a> have long argued that a line is a bad metaphor for how Americans think about politics. </p>
<p>Sometimes scholars and pundits will argue that views on economic issues like taxes and income redistribution, and views on so-called social or cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage, actually represent two distinct dimensions in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-060314-115422">American political attitudes</a>. Americans, they say, can have liberal views on one dimension <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/351494/americans-divided-social-economic-issues.aspx">but conservative views on the other</a>. So you could have a pro-choice voter who wants lower taxes, or a pro-life voter who wants the government to do more to help the poor. </p>
<p>But even this more sophisticated, two-dimensional picture doesn’t reveal what Americans actually want the government to do – or not do – when it comes to policy. </p>
<p>First, it ignores some of the most contentious topics in American politics today, like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1131789230/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard-unc">affirmative action</a>, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-convention-embraces-black-lives-matter/2020/08/18/f1de2ce8-e0f7-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html">Black Lives Matter movement</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/16/desantis-anti-woke-law-00087483">attempts to stamp out “wokeness”</a> on college campuses.</p>
<p>Since 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency while simultaneously <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-fresh-look-back-at-2016-finds-america-with-an-identity-crisis/2018/09/15/0ac62364-b8f0-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html">stoking racial anxieties</a> and bucking Republican orthodoxy on <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-breaks-gop-orthodoxy-taxes-msna670121">taxes</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-says-he-s-fine-gay-marriage-60-minutes-interview-n683606">same-sex marriage</a>, it has become clear that what Americans think about politics can’t really be understood without knowing what they think about racism, and what – if anything – they want done about it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a white shirt and tie with gray hair, standing at a lectern outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Racial Justice Communitarians’ have liberal views on economic issues and moderate or conservative views on moral issues; some Black evangelicals supported Barack Obama but were troubled by his support for same-sex marriage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-speaks-at-capital-university-on-news-photo/160056112?adppopup=true">Charles Ommanney/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Recently, some political scientists have argued that views on racial issues represent a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/96/4/1757/4781058">third “dimension” in American politics</a>. But there are other problems with treating political attitudes as a set of “dimensions” in the first place. For example, even a “3D” picture doesn’t allow for the possibility that Americans with conservative economic views tend to also hold conservative racial views, while Americans with liberal economic views are deeply divided on issues related to race. </p>
<h2>A new picture of American politics</h2>
<p>In our new <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12517">article in Sociological Inquiry</a>, we analyzed public opinion data from 2004 to 2020 to develop a more nuanced picture of American political attitudes. Our aim was to do a better job of figuring out what Americans actually think about politics, including policies related to race and racism. </p>
<p>Using a new analytic method that doesn’t force us to think in terms of dimensions at all, we found that, over the past two decades, Americans can be broadly divided into five different groups.</p>
<p>In most years, slightly less than half of all Americans had consistently liberal or conservative views on policies related to the economy, morality and race, and thus fall into one of two groups. </p>
<p>“Consistent Conservatives” tend to believe that the free market should be given free rein in the economy, are generally anti-abortion, tend to say that they support “traditional family ties” and oppose most government efforts to address racial disparities. These Americans almost exclusively identify themselves as Republicans.</p>
<p>“Consistent Liberals” strongly support government intervention in the economy, tend to be in favor of abortion rights and pro-same-sex marriage and feel that the government has a responsibility to help address discrimination against Black Americans. They mostly identify as Democrats.</p>
<p>But the majority of Americans, who don’t fall into one of these two groups, are not necessarily “moderates,” as they are often characterized. Many have very strong views on certain issues, but can’t be pigeonholed as being on the left or right in general. </p>
<p>Instead, we find that these Americans can be classified as one of three groups, whose size and relationship to the two major parties change from one election cycle to the next: </p>
<p>“Racial Justice Communitarians” have liberal views on economic issues like taxes and redistribution and moderate or conservative views on moral issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. They also strongly believe that the government has a responsibility to address racial discrimination. This group likely includes many of the Black evangelicals who strongly supported Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, but were also deeply uncomfortable with his expression of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/05/10/152442748/black-voters-likely-to-stick-with-obama-despite-gay-marriage-stance">support for same-sex marriage in 2012</a>.</p>
<p>“Nativist Communitarians” also have liberal views on economics and conservative views on moral issues, but they are extremely conservative with respect to race and immigration, in some cases even more so than Consistent Conservatives. Picture, for instance, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds">those voters in 2016</a> who were attracted to both Bernie Sanders’ economic populism and Donald Trump’s attacks on immigrants. </p>
<p>“Libertarians,” who we find became much more prominent after the tea party protests of 2010, are conservative on economic issues, liberal on social issues and have mixed but generally conservative views in regard to racial issues. Think here of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/18/d-c-silicon-valley-00087611">Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists</a> who think that the government has no business telling them how to run their company – or telling gay couples that they can’t get married.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large collection of colorful campaign signs placed in the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three groups of Americans have a difficult time fitting in with either of America’s two major parties.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/campaign-signs-are-shown-near-voters-waiting-in-line-at-news-photo/1244613234?adppopup=true">Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Five groups – but only two parties</h2>
<p>These three groups of Americans have a difficult time fitting in with either of the two major parties in the U.S. </p>
<p>In every year we looked, the Racial Justice Communitarians – who include the largest percentage of nonwhite Americans – were most likely to identify as Democrats. But in some years up to 40% still thought of themselves as Republicans or independents.</p>
<p>Nativist Communitarians and Libertarians are even harder to pin down. During the Obama years they were actually slightly more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. But since Trump’s rise in 2016, both groups are now slightly more likely to identify as Republicans, although large percentages of each group describe themselves as independents or Democrats.</p>
<p>Seeing Americans as divided into these five groups – as opposed to polarized between the left and right – shows that both political parties are competing for coalitions of voters with different combinations of views.</p>
<p>Many Racial Justice Communitarians disagree with the Democratic Party when it comes to cultural and social issues. But the party probably can’t win national elections without their votes. And, unless they are willing to make a strong push for promoting “racial justice,” the Republican Party’s national electoral prospects probably depend on attracting significant support from either the economically liberal Nativist Communitarians or the socially liberal Libertarians. </p>
<p>But perhaps most importantly, these five groups show how diverse Americans’ political attitudes really are. Just because American democracy is a two-party system doesn’t mean that there are only two kinds of American voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We often talk about the American political landscape as if it were a line – Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right. Two political scientists say that view doesn’t reflect reality.Graham Wright, Associate Research Scientist, Maurice & Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis UniversitySasha Volodarsky, Ph.D. Student in Political Science, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015692023-04-18T20:01:07Z2023-04-18T20:01:07ZDiseases gave us the rise of Christianity, the end of the Aztecs and public sanitation. How might future plagues change human history?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517613/original/file-20230327-27-ualse4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4439%2C3183&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elena Mozhvilo/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Every once in a while a book lands on your desk that changes the way you perceive the world you live in, a book that fundamentally challenges your understanding of human history.” So began the blurb that came with this book. Aha! I thought. The usual advertising hyperbole, a gross exaggeration. </p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/pathogenesis-9781911709053">Pathogenesis</a> <em>did</em> challenge much of my understanding of world history. Who knew that if it wasn’t for an Ebola-like pandemic in the 2nd century CE, Christianity would never have become a world religion? Or that if it weren’t for retroviruses, women would be laying eggs rather than having live births? (According to the book’s author, a retrovirus inserted DNA into our ancestor’s genome that caused the placenta to develop.)</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Book review: Pathogenesis: How germs made history – by Jonathan Kennedy (Torva)</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517614/original/file-20230327-20-1geds5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>However, this is not another book of Amazing Facts: it is a work of scholarship, with nearly 700 references and notes. At the same time, it is very readable, and even amusing at times. </p>
<p>Many books have been written about the impact of disease on civilisation. I have even written my own modest <a href="https://medium.com/@adrian.esterman/infectious-diseases-and-their-impact-on-civilisation-4eb8ac72cc5b">essay</a> on the topic. However,
Pathogenesis delves deeply into the social history of the world. </p>
<p>Jonathan Kennedy has a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge, and his sociological bent comes through strongly. In eight chapters, and some 350 pages, Kennedy takes us on a whirlwind tour of social history, describing how infectious diseases have shaped humanity at every stage. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/viruses-are-both-the-villains-and-heroes-of-life-as-we-know-it-169131">Viruses are both the villains and heroes of life as we know it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘It’s a bacterial world’</h2>
<p>Kennedy starts by describing the three great branches of living organisms, <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-peaceful-coexistence-to-potential-peril-the-bacteria-that-live-in-and-on-us-104110">bacteria</a>, <a href="https://microbiologysociety.org/why-microbiology-matters/what-is-microbiology/archaea.html">archaea</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/eukaryote">eukaryotes</a> – it is the latter that contains all complex life forms, including humans. However, fewer than 0.001% of all species are eukaryotes. </p>
<p>Bacteria, on the other hand, are the dominant life form on this planet. As Kennedy puts it, “it’s a bacterial world, and we’re just squatting here”. </p>
<p>Our own species, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/rethinking-homo-sapiens-the-story-of-our-origins-gets-dizzyingly-complicated-99760">Homo sapiens</a></em>, arose some 315,000 years ago, living for the most part in Africa. At the same time, human species such as Neanderthals and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dna-from-elusive-human-relatives-the-denisovans-has-left-a-curious-mark-on-modern-people-in-new-guinea-196113">Denisovans</a> spread out into Europe. However, about 50,000 years ago, <em>Homo sapiens</em> burst out of Africa and spread across the world, while all other human species simply vanished. There are many <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-homo-sapiens-became-the-ultimate-invasive-species/">theories</a> as to why and how this occurred – for example, perhaps <em>Homo sapiens</em> were just smarter. </p>
<p>However, Kennedy proposes his own theory. Because <em>Homo sapiens</em> lived primarily in Africa, they were exposed to many pathogens, and eventually acquired genetic changes that gave them some protection. The exodus out of Africa exposed other species to these pathogens, causing their demise. </p>
<p>He describes the <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-were-the-mysterious-neolithic-people-that-enabled-the-rise-of-ancient-egypt-heres-what-weve-learned-on-our-digs-121070">Neolithic</a> revolution, which took place about 12,000 years ago and which saw the change from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Because of their nomadic existence in small groups, hunter-gatherers tended to be relatively healthy, with an average lifespan of 72 - better than the average lifespan in some countries today! </p>
<p>It has always been assumed that this revolution was a good thing, bringing better nutrition and more leisure time. However, in Kennedy’s view, the Neolithic revolution led to the emergence of despotism, inequality, poverty and backbreaking work. He describes how settlement and the farming of domestic animals led to the emergence of zoonotic diseases – that is, <a href="https://theconversation.com/preventing-future-pandemics-starts-with-recognizing-links-between-human-and-animal-health-167617">diseases spread by animals</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517617/original/file-20230327-24-pz4erz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Settlement and the farming of domestic animals led to the emergence of diseases spread by animals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">kallerna/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disease-evolution-our-long-history-of-fighting-viruses-54569">Disease evolution: our long history of fighting viruses</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Plagues and social upheavals</h2>
<p>In a chapter on ancient plagues, Kennedy quotes from Monty Python’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-of-brian-at-40-an-assertion-of-individual-freedom-that-still-resonates-114743">The Life of Brian</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He points out that Roman cities were, in fact, “filthy, stinking and disease-ridden”, and goes on to describe the great plagues <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-3-prior-pandemics-triggered-massive-societal-shifts-146467">that weakened the Roman Empire</a>. The first was the Antonine Plague, possibly caused by smallpox. This was followed some 70 years later by the Plague of Cyprian from AD 249-262, which led to the splitting of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity. </p>
<p>Kennedy completes this chapter with a description of the Plague of Justinian, caused by bubonic plague. The massive deaths caused by this epidemic led to the demise of the Roman Empire, and the Muslim conquest of the Middle East. </p>
<p>In the period 1346–53, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-black-death-give-birth-to-modern-plagues-3820">Black Death</a> tore through North Africa and Europe, killing an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death">estimated</a> 75 million to 200 million people. Kennedy describes the devastation and huge social upheavals that resulted from this pandemic. Until then, the Roman Catholic Church dominated society. But:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the Black Death and subsequent plague outbreaks, people looked to the Church for comfort. All too often they didn’t find it. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517616/original/file-20230327-22-23ih7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Black Death killed an estimated 75–200 million people in Europe and North Africa. Hugo Simberg Black Death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This led to the rise of Protestantism, aided by the invention of the printing press - a shortage of labour encouraged the development of such labour-saving devices. Over the next 200 years, waves of plague repeatedly hit Europe. A quarantine system was developed in Venice, and <em>cordon sanitaires</em> established, to prevent movement of people between cities - ring any bells? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-black-death-give-birth-to-modern-plagues-3820">Did the Black Death give birth to modern plagues?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Pathogens as New World killers</h2>
<p>In the period from 1500 onwards, white colonialists nearly wiped out indigenous people by infecting them. Kennedy starts with the early 16th century, when Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition to Mexico. His arrival <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-aztecs-and-helped-spain-conquer-an-american-civilization-500-years-ago-111579">introduced smallpox</a>, which resulted in the total destruction of the Aztec Empire within just two years. However, this was just the start. </p>
<p>In the early 1530s, Mexico was hit by an epidemic of <a href="https://theconversation.com/measles-new-efforts-needed-to-stop-an-old-disease-13706">measles</a> that killed 80% of its population, making it the deadliest epidemic in recorded history. Over the following decades, across the whole of the Americas, the introduction of infectious diseases from Europe resulted in a 90% fall in the population. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517624/original/file-20230327-15-s0x2ks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hernán Cortés brought smallpox to Mexico, resulting in the total destruction of the Aztec Empire within two years, as illustrated in this 16th-century drawing of Aztec smallpox victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, during this period, it wasn’t just the New World that was profoundly affected by pathogens. On the west coast of Africa, explorers and would-be colonialists died in droves from <a href="https://theconversation.com/worlds-first-mass-malaria-vaccine-rollout-could-prevent-thousands-of-children-dying-169457">malaria</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/zika-dengue-yellow-fever-what-are-flaviviruses-53969">yellow fever</a>. </p>
<p>Interestingly, Kennedy starts his chapter on revolutionary plagues with the murder of <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-deserved-a-better-life-a-new-book-charts-his-trajectory-from-poverty-to-the-us-prison-industrial-complex-and-the-impact-of-his-death-182947">George Floyd</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-black-lives-matter-movement-has-provoked-a-cultural-reckoning-about-how-black-stories-are-told-149544">Black Lives Matter</a> movement, before delving deep into the history of slavery. He describes slavery in Greek and Roman times, and the booming trade in slaves in the medieval Mediterranean. </p>
<p>The association between black Africans and <a href="https://theconversation.com/slavery-is-not-a-crime-in-almost-half-the-countries-of-the-world-new-research-115596">slavery</a> only began in the 15th century. In fact, only 3% of the 12.5 million humans trafficked across the Atlantic ended up in the United States. The most common destinations of the slave ships were the European colonies in the Caribbean, where African slave labour was first used more than a century before their shipment to North America. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the Caribbean, slave labour from tropical West Africa toiled on sugar plantations owned by the English, Spanish, French and Dutch. Yellow fever carried by mosquitoes wiped out many of the Europeans, including military garrisons, leading to slave revolts.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-slave-state-how-blackbirding-in-colonial-australia-created-a-legacy-of-racism-187782">Friday essay: a slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Diseases ‘thrived’ in Dickensian habitats</h2>
<p>When Kennedy switches his focus to Britain, and the industrial revolution, he describes it as the change from a Thomas Hardy novel to one by <a href="https://theconversation.com/great-expectations-by-charles-dickens-class-prejudices-the-convict-stain-and-a-corpse-bride-159816">Charles Dickens</a>. The crowded and unsanitary conditions in working-class urban districts created new habitats, in which pathogens thrived. </p>
<p>Kennedy again evokes Monty Python to invoke the scenery of those days, reminding readers of the famous four Yorkshiremen sketch. The scene made me think of a different quote from the same sketch:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You were lucky to have a house! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every Epidemiology 101 course covers the story of <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/people/john-snow/">John Snow</a> (no – not the “Winter is coming” one!). <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section2.html">Two decades</a> before the development of the microscope, Snow examined cholera outbreaks to discover the cause of disease and how to prevent it. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517625/original/file-20230327-14-jix57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Snow proved in 1854 that cholera is a waterborne disease: a London pub is named for him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/6699">ceridwen/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the third UK cholera outbreak in 1854, Snow famously removed London’s Broad Street water pump, to demonstrate that cholera was a waterborne disease. For those interested, there is a <a href="https://londonspubswherehistoryreallyhappened.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/john-snow/">John Snow</a> pub in London. Kennedy, of course, includes this story in his book.</p>
<p>Kennedy points out that 3.5 billion people – half of the world’s population – have no access to proper toilets, while a billion don’t have clean drinking water and 1.5 million people, mainly children, die every year from waterborne diarrhoeal diseases. </p>
<p>We still have massive <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-cholera-remains-a-public-health-threat-74444">cholera outbreaks</a>, especially in areas where normal life has been disrupted by war or natural disasters. <a href="https://theconversation.com/tuberculosis-kills-as-many-people-each-year-as-covid-19-its-time-we-found-a-better-vaccine-151590">Tuberculosis</a> still kills 1.2 million people a year, despite the availability of antibiotics. Malaria kills another 600,000. </p>
<p>Finally in this section, he briefly covers <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-hospitalisations-and-deaths-are-rising-faster-than-cases-but-that-doesnt-mean-more-severe-disease-187163">COVID</a>. He points out that not everyone in the world benefited from the medical advances that came about because of COVID, and the self-interested actions of high-income countries have deprived the poorer countries. As he puts it, “pathogens thrive on inequality and injustice”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fleas-to-flu-to-coronavirus-how-death-ships-spread-disease-through-the-ages-137061">Fleas to flu to coronavirus: how 'death ships' spread disease through the ages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Future plagues</h2>
<p>Kennedy concludes by looking at future plagues. He points out humanity’s precarious position: we live on a planet dominated by bacteria and viruses. He believes our best chance of surviving the threat posed by pathogens will come from working collaboratively and reducing inequality both within and between countries. </p>
<p>Based on its title, I assumed this book would be about the role of pathogens in shaping civilisation. Instead, I found a social history of the world, with the odd foray into diseases and their influence on society. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and can highly recommend it to those with an interest in history, sociology and epidemiology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Esterman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This whirlwind tour of social history describes how infectious diseases have shaped humanity at every stage. It suggests reducing inequality will give us our best chance of surviving future plagues.Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2009892023-03-26T12:51:08Z2023-03-26T12:51:08ZHow can we maximize woke’s potential while minimizing the culture war’s divisiveness?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516511/original/file-20230320-2155-az4ckj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C8682%2C3377&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The word 'woke' has become a politically potent term used to define and discredit a host of social issues.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent collapse of <a href="https://theconversation.com/silicon-valley-bank-biggest-us-lender-to-fail-since-2008-financial-crisis-a-finance-expert-explains-the-impact-201626">Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ubs-mulls-credit-suisse-takeover-amid-us-bank-fallout-what-you-need-know-2023-03-19/">other major banks</a> has raised fears about <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-16/fears-of-a-repeat-of-the-2008-financial-crisis-haunt-governments">a potential 2008-style banking crisis</a>. While this <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-silicon-valley-bank-collapse-watch-live-stream-today-2023-03-13/">seems unlikely</a>, like so many events these days, SVB’s failure has also been caught in the sticky rhetorical web of the culture war. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/home-depot-co-founder-torches-woke-silicon-valley-bank-collapse-warns-recession-here-already">Right-wing media outlets</a> and pundits have blamed SVB’s collapse on its <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11848705/Woke-head-risk-assessment-Silicon-Valley-Bank-accused-prioritizing-diversity-issues.html">so-called woke practices</a>.</p>
<p>In other news, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vivek-ramaswamy-antiwoke-entrepreneur-challenging-trump-for-president-gop-2023-2">Vivek Ramaswamy</a>, author of the anti-woke book <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/19/the-ceo-of-anti-woke-inc"><em>Woke, Inc.</em></a>, recently became the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/13/anti-woke-ramaswamy-2024-election-00082414">latest entrant in the U.S. Republican Party’s presidential primary</a>. The entry of Vivek Ramaswamy and <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3866">other potential candidates</a> indicates that battles over wokeness <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article273310700.html">will likely spill over into the next U.S. presidential election</a>.</p>
<h2>Old term meets new movements</h2>
<p>The term woke is not new, and its history is lengthy and tragic.</p>
<p>The idea was first popularized by legendary folk singer <a href="https://www.leadbelly.org/leadbelly.html">Lead Belly</a> in his 1938 song <a href="https://20thcenturyhistorysongbook.com/song-book/race-relations/the-scottsboro-boys/"><em>Scottsboro Boys</em></a>. It alludes to <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/scottsboro-boys">nine black teenagers who were falsely accused of raping two white women</a> in Alabama in 1931. In relation to the song, Lead Belly warned, “<a href="https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/lifestyle/2022/04/14/wokeness-how-meaning-woke-evolved-and-where-its-going-next/7287343001/">I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there — best stay woke, keep their eyes open</a>.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VrXfkPViFIE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Scottsboro Boys’ by American musician Lead Belly.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://language-and-innovation.com/about/">Linguist Tony Thorne</a> suggests that Black Americans started using the term in the 1940s to “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/woke-meaning-word-history-b1790787.html">mean becoming woken up or sensitized to issues of justice</a>.”</p>
<p>From this, wokeness initially focused on raising awareness among Black Americans of important issues impacting their community. But over time, its use expanded to encompass other social justice concerns, often in new and sometimes highly inconsistent ways.</p>
<p>In the wake of 2013’s <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/">Black Lives Matter movement</a>, woke’s meaning quickly expanded. Part of this has to do with its social media origins. The movement subsequently became diffuse <a href="https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-7472-3.ch002">due to its unique organizational structure and social media use</a>. </p>
<p>A term that was once focused on the challenges facing Black Americans within a complex political landscape expanded rapidly. Now it is used as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy">shorthand for a host of progressive ideas</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, woke quickly became a broad rallying cry for social justice.</p>
<p>However, the swift spread of the term among advocates and allies was not universally welcomed. Instead, woke continued to wildly transition in opposition to the rapid expansion of social justice movements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tug of war between two hands with words 'WOKE' on left-hand and 'ANTI-WOKE' on right" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513950/original/file-20230307-14-rcopdl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Woke’ has become a rallying cry for many progressive causes. But it has also triggered anti-woke reactionism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">zijunnyc/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Waking the anti-woke</h2>
<p>Right-wing politicians routinely rail against perceptions of wokeness. For example, Canadian opposition leader <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/12/canada-conservative-leader-poilievre-00056205">Pierre Poilievre</a> has characterized himself as “<a href="https://xtramagazine.com/power/politics/pierre-poilievre-brand-populism-236084">anti-woke</a>.”</p>
<p>In 2022, former U.S. president Donald Trump criticized banks, believing they had “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-banks-woke-penalised-b2197367.html">gone woke</a>” and should be penalized. As such, SVB and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11860445/Signature-Bank-boss-hosted-company-seminar-gender-neutral-pronouns-prior-bank-failure.html">Signature Bank</a> are not the first banks to be caught up in the widespread hysteria over wokeness. </p>
<p>Congressman Matt Gaetz said that the <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/04/05/argument-over-woke-ism-in-the-military-erupts-in-house-hearing/">U.S. military is too focused on wokeism</a>. And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly made headlines over his government’s <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/01/23/ron-desantis-defends-fla-rejection-of-woke-black-history-course/">ban on teaching certain subjects deemed woke</a> and his rejection of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/27/disney-ex-ceo-chapek-called-desantis-over-dont-say-gay-book.html">corporate social advocacy</a>.</p>
<p>Business executives like Ramaswamy have criticized <a href="https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/capitalisnt-is-woke-capitalism-threat-democracy">woke capitalism</a> and Elon Musk has recently criticized ChatGPT which <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/elon-musk-to-develop-ai-rival-to-woke-chatgpt-report/">he believes has gone woke</a>.</p>
<p>Comedian <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-maher-shares-definition-of-woke-during-jake-tapper-cnn-interview">Bill Maher</a> frequently <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2023/02/28/bill-maher-jake-tapper-woke-liberal-lead-contd-vpx.cnn">complains</a> about woke’s impact.</p>
<p>Personalities like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson believe it <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/05/18/joe-rogan-straight-white-men-silenced-by-woke-culture/">silences speech</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/jordan-peterson-warns-western-countries-woke-totalitarian-social-credit-system-highly-probable">cancels speakers</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-we-cancel-cancel-culture-164666">Can we cancel 'cancel culture?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The label woke is now frequently deployed <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/6/24/what-is-woke-culture-and-why-has-it-become-so-toxic">in opposition to a variety of social movements</a>, including fights for <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/caterinabulgarella/2022/10/12/with-the-anti-woke-backlash-against-women-escalating-efforts-to-increase-diversity-must-accelerate/?sh=253173851eeb">gender equality</a>, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90852536/the-republican-backlash-to-so-called-woke-capitalism-may-be-tanking-a-key-climate-proposal">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.sageusa.org/news-posts/anti-woke-bills-could-affect-lgbtq-sensitivity-training-for-eldercare-advocates-worry/">LGBTQ+ rights</a>, among others.</p>
<p>Like pebbles dropped into a pond, the waves of conflict over wokeness ripple ever outward. But how can we maximize woke’s liberating potential while minimizing divisiveness?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2871%2C1413&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="'Woke' black text with a blue eye in the middle as the letter 'o'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2871%2C1413&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513493/original/file-20230305-2482-ox3ggy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Open-ended terms like ‘woke’ can evolve over time to symbolize more than their creators could have ever imagined.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dinosossi/52726860798">dinosossi/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Post-woke future</h2>
<p>For some, the idea of being woke means to “<a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2022/03/28/how-woke-became-weaponized-in-the-culture-wars/">be awake to social oppression</a>.” But for others, <a href="https://www.aspenideas.org/podcasts/when-the-woke-playbook-kills-free-speech">wokeness limits speech</a> and threatens the prevailing order.</p>
<p>The result? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/20/anti-woke-race-america-history">Vicious public quarrels</a>. We are trapped in a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/">digital Tower of Babel built for the social media age</a> seemingly without escape.</p>
<p>Open-ended terms like woke can evolve over time to symbolize more than their creators could have ever imagined. Words used ambiguously and in excess can eventually become meaningless. They can even experience <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/very-actually-and-other-examples-of-semantic-bleaching">semantic bleaching</a>. This is when words lose their meaning through repeated and varied usage.</p>
<p>The state of play is so topsy-turvy you could argue that even anti-woke politicians can be woke. Think <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9409586/pierre-poilievre-vows-different-approach-to-reconciliation-after-speech-to-frontier-centre/">Poilievre advocating for drinking water for Indigenous communities</a>. Or <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/01/trump-republicans-first-step-act-00029104">Trump’s criminal justice reforms</a>.</p>
<p>When one term is interpreted antithetically, even adopted by its avowed adversaries, it increasingly becomes meaningless.</p>
<p>We should resist easy labels like wokeness that simplify or disregard complex and legitimate issues. Unclear terms confuse instead of clarify, alienating those we wish to include in conversation. Society suffers and divisions harden. And marginalized individuals often suffer the most severe consequences through no fault of their own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dino Sossi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The word ‘woke’ has increasingly become caught up in the rhetoric of the culture war. But debates around wokeness and what it means are drawing attention away from the real issues.Dino Sossi, Adjunct Assistant Professor, OCAD UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1990652023-02-12T13:19:53Z2023-02-12T13:19:53ZWhy populism has an enduring and ominous appeal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509037/original/file-20230208-2401-c7sy0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5615%2C3732&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, storm the National Congress building in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X14536652">Max Weber</a>, the founder of modern sociology, once argued that charismatic politicians are seen by their followers as saviours and heroes.</p>
<p>But they are just as likely to be charlatans and swindlers.</p>
<p>Whether you blame social media or inequality, contemporary citizens seem to want political <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/horse-race-reporting-election/">horse races</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051010-111659">big personalities</a> — at least that’s the conventional wisdom. Engage your disgruntled followers with big ideas on TikTok! </p>
<p>It would be bad enough if culture war clashes were just so much entertainment. But politicians that include former British prime minister <a href="https://michaelignatieff.ca/article/2022/democracy-versus-democracy-the-populist-challenge-to-liberal-democracy/">Boris Johnson</a> in the U.K. and American Sen. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3760382-hawley-cruz-rubio-emerge-as-champions-of-gop-populism-amid-trumps-decline/">Josh Hawley</a> appeal to the working classes — the masses of people without much money who turn out to vote. </p>
<p>Their alpha male leadership styles are built on audacious attacks on <a href="https://michaelignatieff.ca/article/2022/democracy-versus-democracy-the-populist-challenge-to-liberal-democracy/">the legitimacy</a> of free, open and equitable societies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-hard-core-trump-supporters-ignore-his-lies-144650">Why hard-core Trump supporters ignore his lies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The public watches in amazement as these leaders espouse terrible beliefs about immigrants, refugees and sexual minorities that only bigots used to say in private. </p>
<p>As we examine in our book <em><a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/has-populism-won">Has Populism Won? The War On Liberal Democracy</a></em>, these populist shock-and-awe tactics are a brazen attempt to personalize authority under the cliché of “power to the people.” They also cause citizens to lose sight of what’s important as they bicker over the newest scandal. </p>
<h2>Conspiracy theories, lies</h2>
<p>Polarization is not a side effect of populism, but rather its <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/10/01/how-to-understand-global-spread-of-political-polarization-pub-79893">mainspring</a>. </p>
<p>Populists know that in highly polarized societies, a photo finish is still a win. So candidates <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-says-hell-fight-like-hell-to-hold-on-to-presidency">fight like hell</a>, using every tool at their disposal to win — conspiracy theories, outright lies and of course, obscene amounts of money. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1622709298500628482"}"></div></p>
<p>Disenchanted voters support populists because conservatives have thrown off the shackles of modern <a href="https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2023/01/the-shill-of-the-people/">political messaging</a>. Extremism cuts through the noise of the news cycle and connects with the base. </p>
<p>Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s newly elected Conservative leader, is an example. He’s <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8959365/canada-day-convoy-james-topp-far-right-pierre-poilievre/">riding the wave of the so-called Freedom Convoy, anti-vaxxers and the far-right wing of his party</a> and following the template that has worked so well for populist governments across the globe. </p>
<p>But his free speech persona, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2019.1599570">like every other authoritarian</a>, is carefully constructed.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1623420038244929536"}"></div></p>
<p>Italy’s <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/italys-election-giorgia-meloni-far-right-favorite-for-prime-minister-appeals-to-disgruntled-voters/a-63184990">Giorgia Meloni</a> is an instructive example of this careful construction. </p>
<p>Voters were seduced by her charisma. That’s because the crucial element in creating a a popular far-right movement is constantly reminding citizens that they are the tribe of the true nation — and Meloni has mastered the discipline of a communications maestro. </p>
<p>Collective wrath is a proxy for belonging to the tribe and that feeling of belonging became the basis for her authoritarian fantasy of the popular will. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/giorgia-melonis-win-in-italy-proves-even-a-seemingly-successful-government-can-fall-victim-to-populism-191278">Giorgia Meloni's win in Italy proves even a seemingly successful government can fall victim to populism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Anger is a prime motivator</h2>
<p>Despite his defeat, voters turned out in large numbers to vote for <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/2020-election-numbers">Donald Trump in 2020</a> and barely rejected <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/30/brazil-election-lula-da-silva-narrowly-defeats-jair-bolsonaro">Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro in 2022</a>.</p>
<p>Do high-profile losses mean the worst is over? No, because the <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2020/03/11/populism-jeopardizes-democracies-around-world/">contempt for democracy at the heart of populism</a> has not yet been defeated. Today <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/2232411">populism is still growing</a>, metastasizing and reaching into every corner of modern politics. It is coming from many directions at once. </p>
<p>At first it was easy to write off populism’s appeal to ignorance. Now the key elements radicalizing voters are crystal-clear: <a href="https://www.piie.com/commentary/speeches-papers/backlash-against-globalization">anger against hyper-globalization, a reserve army of economic losers, ideological true believers</a>, charismatic leaders weaponizing the big lie and the ultimate prize, money and organization to win the commanding heights of political office.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-freedom-convoy-protesters-are-a-textbook-case-of-aggrieved-entitlement-176791">The 'freedom convoy' protesters are a textbook case of 'aggrieved entitlement'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Social psychologists have shown that anger is a <a href="https://isr.umich.edu/news-events/insights-newsletter/article/anger-motivates-people-to-vote-u-m-study-shows/">prime motivator</a> in politics. In times of peril, the most vulnerable pin their hopes on the authoritarian leader with emotionally charged messaging and grandiose promises. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a white beard and glasses gestures as he speaks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509015/original/file-20230208-17-egr76l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the media in New Delhi in November 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, the anger is a distraction from the true work of the populist — disinformation. In a post-truth age, the populist is a narcissist like India’s Narendra Modi, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/04/modi-india-personality-cult-democracy/">who uses sly innuendo and outright chicanery to consolidate power</a>. </p>
<p>Many reasonable people in advanced democracies tolerate populist temper tantrums because <a href="https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.6565">anger and bullshit</a> are better than apathy, aren’t they? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bullshit-is-everywhere-heres-how-to-deal-with-it-at-work-135661">Bullshit is everywhere. Here's how to deal with it at work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Populist turmoil, however, can’t be measured in units of patriotism. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54484-7_64">Patriotism requires genuine care</a> for one’s country and all the people in it. </p>
<p>In the hands of masters of manipulation, anger coarsens discourse, diminishes the possibility of compromise and normalizes extreme rhetoric. Even so, anger in politics isn’t always a power move. </p>
<p>Outrage can motivate people to speak up and utter uncomfortable truths. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.2009578">Compassionate anger</a> can be a powerful force for justice, as we witnessed in the Black Lives Matter movement. How can we tell the difference between rage farming and righteous anger? It’s difficult but doable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People carry a Black Lives Matter flag as they walk along a downtown street at night." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509042/original/file-20230208-30-ypgkhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this Nov. 4, 2020, photo, protesters representing Black Lives Matter and Protect the Results march in Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The cynicism of contempt</h2>
<p>The difference between political success and failure in such a polarized society is always a matter of voter turnout. </p>
<p>In the United States, the Republicans bet that dialling up the anger to an 11 would squeeze a few more votes from an exhausted electorate, but they didn’t deliver <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/politics/trump-republicans-2024-nikki-haley.html">a red tsunami — this time</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-u-s-voters-reduced-the-red-wave-to-a-pink-splash-in-the-midterm-elections-why-didnt-polls-predict-it-194507">Young U.S. voters reduced the 'Red Wave' to a 'Pink Splash' in the midterm elections — why didn't polls predict it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Is it fair to decry the normalization of strong emotions in politics as a conservative problem? Don’t both sides use intense feeling for political gain? They do. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00987-4">Emotional messaging is too potent a tool in modern democracy</a> to be ignored by any party that wants to win power. But today, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2017/may/26/negativity-bias-why-conservatives-are-more-swayed-by-threats-than-liberals">conservatives lean hard on strong negative emotions</a> and eschew hope — and their outrage <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/13/populism-post-truth-politics-brazil-protest-00077721">too often carries a distinct threat of vindictive violence.</a> </p>
<p>When analyzing affective political messaging, we always need to figure out if the anger we’re witnessing is calculated to prolong endless wars of polarization or whether it seeks to reconcile division and rebuild community. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Two black women press their heads together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509028/original/file-20230208-2415-oak7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RowVaughn Wells, left, mother of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers, is comforted by Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, D-Texas, on Capitol Hill on Feb. 7, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, Black mothers in Memphis are demanding the police stop killing <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/us/rowvaughn-wells-tyre-nichols-mother-interview/index.html">their sons</a>. Their demands are grounded in reality, and more than anything else they want a future of peace and safety for their children.</p>
<p>Today populism is defined by rhetorical violence and the authoritarian supposed strongmen. <a href="https://diamond-democracy.stanford.edu/speaking/speeches/when-does-populism-become-threat-democracy">Democracies die and civil wars start</a> with right-wing leaders who use their anger to degrade democracy and tighten their grip on power. </p>
<p>Make no mistake. We are far beyond the stop-gap measures of small-step reform or pragmatic centrist liberalism. What lies beyond the careful compromises of the post-Second World War order? We’re about to find out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Populism has been unleashed. We’re beyond the stop-gap measures of small-step reform or pragmatic centrist liberalism. What’s next? We’re about to find out.Daniel Drache, Professor emeritus, Department of Politics, York University, CanadaMarc D. Froese, Professor of Political Science and Founding Director, International Studies Program, Burman UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1990392023-02-08T13:41:24Z2023-02-08T13:41:24ZHow Black communities cope with trauma triggered by police brutality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508202/original/file-20230205-29-3bqf1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1772%2C451%2C5224%2C4206&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A portrait of Tyre Nichols at the entrance of the church where his funeral was held in Memphis, Tenn., on Feb. 1, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/screen-at-the-entrance-of-mississippi-boulevard-christian-news-photo/1246727538?phrase=tyre%20nichols&adppopup=true">Lucy Garrett/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release of footage showing the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by <a href="https://wreg.com/news/local/tyre-nichols/">Memphis police</a> and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/atlantas-cop-city-people-protesting/story?id=96716095">protests in Atlanta</a> in 2023 renewed public debate on the issues of police brutality and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152502698/tyre-nichols-killing-revives-calls-for-congress-to-address-police-reform">police reform</a>.</p>
<p>For some people, seeing is believing, and the circulation of videos documenting police violence is valued as a tool of accountability. </p>
<p>But for many in the Black community, which studies show is <a href="https://www.healthdata.org/news-release/lancet-more-half-police-killings-usa-are-unreported-and-black-americans-are-most-likely">disproportionately affected by police brutality</a>, viewing videos of and having conversations about police violence can have several <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14065">adverse effects</a>, including <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40615-019-00629-1">psychological distress</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2021.2006261?casa_token=s7mKCpWoc0wAAAAA%3AxA42-v7wRL8cmVj0XubR0Mv4fv0udBbgqKwHoVRDohPSr41dFVOGRvbGkXUz4t9YukrN0RutFwXY">trauma</a>. </p>
<h2>What is trauma?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/trauma">American Psychological Association </a> defines trauma as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning.” </p>
<p>In her <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/judith-lewis-herman-md/trauma-and-recovery/9781541602953/">seminal book</a> “Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror,” published in 1992, <a href="https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/58637">Dr. Judith Lewis Herman</a> notes that encountering a traumatic event permanently alters one’s perceptions of safety. </p>
<p>To prepare for a threat, these individuals develop intense feelings of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/fear">fear</a> and <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/anger.asp">anger</a>.
These changes in <a href="https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/fight-or-flight-response/#:%7E:text=The%20fight%20or%20flight%20response,body%20to%20fight%20or%20flee.">emotional state</a> are usually biological, as shifts in attention, perception and emotion are normal <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10829/">physiological reactions</a> to a perceived threat. </p>
<p>This is known as our “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128009512000042">fight or flight response</a>.”</p>
<p>Trauma can manifest itself in various ways. For example, on some occasions, traumatic events are known to lead to feelings of <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/depression_trauma.asp">depression and intense sadness</a> and episodes of
<a href="https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/trauma">helplessness</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, trauma is known to increase one’s state of <a href="https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-hypervigilance#:%7E:text=Hypervigilance%20%E2%80%94%20the%20elevated%20state%20of,(PTSD)%20can%20exhibit%20hypervigilance.">hypervigilance</a>, or the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats in the area. This state of <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/hypervigilance#causes">elevated alertness</a> often creates anxiety around dying and can have physiological impacts on the body, such as sweating and elevated heart rate.</p>
<h2>Police brutality and Black trauma</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/deion-hawkins">critical scholar</a> and researcher, I use <a href="https://www.theiacp.org/resources/document/successful-trauma-informed-victim-interviewing">trauma-informed</a> interview techniques to better understand the intersections of police brutality and mental health in the Black community. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10646175.2023.2174391">My research</a>
focuses on those most affected, and that <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00026/full">research</a> highlights the human experience. </p>
<p>There is always a face behind the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fvio0000418">statistic</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027642221145027">my work</a> typically uses <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2837428/">critical race theory</a>, as it focuses on the perspectives of marginalized people. For example, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33902344/">my study</a> published in the Journal of Health Communication explored how stories of police brutality are circulated within the Black community and how these stories affect mental health. </p>
<p>Through dozens of interviews, I discovered three key ways in which trauma is triggered by incidents of police brutality that often appear in Black communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black woman wearing a mask is standing next to large poster that has a portrait of her son. her son" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508207/original/file-20230205-13-u33jo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Valerie Castile stands by a portrait of her son, Philando Castile, on July 6, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/valerie-castile-stands-by-a-portrait-of-her-son-philando-news-photo/1225042618?phrase=Philando%20Castile&adppopup=true">Stephen Maturen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Intense sadness, hypervigilance and sense of helplessness</h2>
<p>The excerpts below are direct quotations from members of the Black community whom I interviewed as part of a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10410236.2021.1913838">larger research project</a>. This study was conducted in Washington, D.C., in 2018, but <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-41051-001">its findings</a> are still relevant, as it reveals how police brutality directly fuels trauma in the Black community. </p>
<p>Because of research protections and protocol, pseudonyms are used, and no other identifying information can be published. </p>
<h2>1. Intense sadness</h2>
<p>When asked about feelings after viewing videos or images of brutality, every interviewee indicated intense sadness as the primary emotion. This sadness often affected how individuals went about their day, especially work-related activities. </p>
<h2>Darius</h2>
<p><em>I remember I walked into work, face cut up and people were like, “What’s wrong? What happened?” I told them I had been in a fight. But really, I had been beat up by a police officer who assumed I was someone else. I appreciated them asking me if I was OK, but I wasn’t really comfortable telling them, you know? We had previous conversations that let me know they didn’t really think Black lives mattered. After Philando, I had to take a sick day to recover. That’s how sad I was, man.</em></p>
<h2>Chanelle</h2>
<p><em>Philando Castile. I was rrreealllly sad. Philando was the boiling point. I cracked. I literally had to leave my desk at work and take a break. When I came back, my white co-workers told me I was overreacting because I didn’t know him, which pissed me off. What they don’t get is that Philando could be anyone in my family. It’s not just Philando, it’s that I fear my brothers could be shot in cold blood at any moment. That’s why I was so damn sad.</em> </p>
<h2>2. Hypervigilance</h2>
<p>Interviewees also discussed their chronic fear of dying at the hands of law enforcement. In turn, this fear prompts a permanent state of hypervigilance or hyperalertness; many members of the Black community constantly feel they are going to die if they encounter a police officer. </p>
<h2>Mary</h2>
<p><em>Whenever I see cops, I tense up. One time, cops pulled up to me when I was in a car and my friend looked at me with the straightest face and said, “One of us is about to die.” I was so shocked, and I said, “That’s not funny.” But he was serious. He really thought one of us was going to die.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="George Floyd's headstone sits front and center in an orderly faux cemetery with other white headstones set up in grass" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402189/original/file-20210521-17-177335d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Each headstone in Minneapolis’ ‘Say Their Names’ cemetery represents a Black American killed by police – deaths that create a ripple effect of pain felt in Black communities nationwide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/george-flyods-headstone-sits-front-and-center-at-the-say-news-photo/1232363944?adppopup=true">Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Luke</h2>
<p><em>There is not a single time where I can sit in a car and hear a siren or see a cop light flash, that I’m not fearful. I imagine it’s like what soldiers feel when they hear anything that sounds like a bomb. When I hear sirens, I start to look around and hope that someone else is around. Because, if I were to get shot, I would want someone to be able to tell the truth. People are straight up dropping at the hands of police. I never want to be in that situation.</em></p>
<h2>Corey</h2>
<p><em>I’m always scared and alert, honestly. I walk around on campus, and I use my iPad to listen to music. I always have my iPad with me. I’m afraid the police are going to see me holding my iPad and assume it’s something else, and before I have time to explain what it is, I’m afraid I would be shot. I always have my headphones in, too. I replay this terrible scenario in my head over and over again. A cop is yelling at me to stop, but since my headphones are in, I can’t hear him and keep walking. He thinks I am running away and shoots me in my back.</em></p>
<h2>3. Sense of helplessness</h2>
<p>Adding to sadness and hyperalertness, many Black Americans also feel they have little control over interactions with police and cannot change the outcome. This is true regardless of their tone, behavior or actions. This is known as helplessness, a known symptom of trauma. </p>
<h2>Lena</h2>
<p><em>It’s a sad reality to accept that no matter how you dress, how you talk, a police officer will always judge you and think you’re a threat. I don’t think we have control over if we are going to get beat or not. Black folks could literally read a how-to-survive book and do every step, but cops would still find some reason to make the situation worse. We are always in a Catch-22. If we talk too much, we are talking back. If we talk too little, we are suspicious. I do everything in my power to avoid cops. Listen, someone broke in my house and I refused to call the police. I be damned. Because I think they would have assumed I was the robber and shot me.</em></p>
<h2>Virginia</h2>
<p><em>Every time I see a video, I feel an intense sadness. It feels like you are in the world’s worst … cycle I guess; some kind of sick joke. It’s like, damn, it happened again. Like nothing is ever going to change. Things may look like they are getting better, but then even when they are arrested, the sadness continues.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199039/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deion Scott Hawkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Police brutality disproportionately affects Black communities and can cause numerous adverse effects, including depression, anxiety and trauma.Deion Scott Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Argumentation & Advocacy, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1988552023-01-31T21:15:51Z2023-01-31T21:15:51ZTyre Nichols: U.S. police violence stems from a long history of fighting ‘internal enemies’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507419/original/file-20230131-15237-8bj1wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 21-year-old woman demonstrates outside the White House over the death of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers on Jan. 7, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of the details surrounding the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/us/tyre-nichols-arrest-videos.html">recent fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols</a> in Memphis, Tenn., are still unknown or disputed. The rest may seem confusing.</p>
<p>Yet in many ways, all you need to know is how the encounter started: With Nichols expressing confusion as to why he had been stopped, and one officer replying that he would <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/us/tyre-nichols-beating-video-takeaways/index.html">“knock your ass the fuck out.”</a></p>
<p>In approaching Nichols as someone hostile — an enemy on a battlefield, rather than a member of the public — the police in this case brought nearly 400 years of American history to what was allegedly a routine traffic stop. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/martial-law.htm">first English authorities in the Americas sometimes imposed martial law over the early colonists</a>, while the <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/religion-colonial-america-trends-regulations-beliefs">Puritans of New England added a range of Biblical laws to everyday life.</a> By the mid-1600s, however, most North American colonists enjoyed the unequal protections of English law, which gradually became more equal for their descendants.</p>
<h2>Roots in Barbados</h2>
<p>A different pattern emerged on Barbados, <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5942/">settled by the English in 1626 and by far the wealthiest of the colonies</a> after its shift to sugar production in the 1640s. To plant, cut and boil the sugar canes, <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/on-barbados-the-first-black-slave-society/">they imported more than 10,000 West African slaves that decade.</a></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-monarchy-has-benefited-from-colonialism-and-slavery-179911">Five ways the monarchy has benefited from colonialism and slavery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For the first time, an English overseas community held a large population of presumably “brutish” and “pagan” peoples as permanent captives. </p>
<p>The English assumed that the African slaves could never become part of the lawful population of Barbados. And so, in 1655, the island’s governor decreed that all Black defendants were to be tried in special courts of <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jhil/21/1/article-p41_3.xml">“oyer and terminer</a> ("to hear and determine”),“ which were normally used only against the most extreme criminals, like witches or traitors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black man with a bushy grey beard holds up an anti-monarchy sign outside a white stone building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507418/original/file-20230131-14-7m6kkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People protest in Barbados to demand an apology and slavery reparations from Prince William and his wife, Kate, during their visit to the former British colony in March 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Collin Reid)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea was <a href="https://blog.umd.edu/slaverylawandpower/barbados-slave-code/">formalized in a set of Barbados laws in 1661</a>. Whereas every son and daughter "of the English nation” would henceforth enjoy due process of law, every Black slave was subject to new slave courts (akin to oyer and terminer) and slave patrols (groups of armed and mounted white people). </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.70.3.0429">These laws spread</a> word-for-word to the English colony of Jamaica in 1665, and from there to South Carolina in the 1690s and Virginia in 1705. </p>
<p>Racial slavery waxed and waned in North America over the next century and a half, <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/slavery-united-states">shrinking during the revolutionary years of the 1770s and 1780s</a> and then <a href="https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-economy">exploding with the rise of cotton in the early 1800s.</a></p>
<p>South of Pennsylvania, the core institutions of <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/slaves-and-the-courts-from-1740-to-1860/about-this-collection/">slave courts</a> and <a href="https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/slave-patrols/">slave patrols</a> remained and indeed expanded in the early United States. </p>
<p>White authorities were very clear as to the rationale behind these courts and patrols: Black people were neither citizens (like white men) nor members of households (like white women and children). Rather, they were an <a href="https://www.amrevmuseum.org/read-the-revolution/the-internal-enemy">“internal enemy,”</a> a hostile and alien element within the lawful community. </p>
<h2>Slavery’s violence endured</h2>
<p>Conservatives often point out that American slavery ended 158 years ago. That’s true. It’s also true that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaz214">northern countryside of the 19th century was famous</a> for not needing much of a police presence, because almost everyone in that democratic stronghold felt protected by and responsible to the law. </p>
<p>Yet it’s equally true that slavery was a central feature of American life for more than 200 years. Some of its most violent practices endured long after the Civil War ended as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reconstruction-white-southern-responses-black-emancipation/">white militias — reconstituted slave patrols</a> — repressed freed peoples’ rights to vote, go to school and hold property throughout the late 1800s and well into the 1900s.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black woman is fingerprinted by a police officer in a black-and-white photo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507427/original/file-20230131-16-kzl91k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police in Montgomery, Ala., in 1956, two months after refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger and more than 90 years after the end of the U.S. Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gene Herrick)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, during an era of European imperialism across Africa and Asia, the U.S. continued to hold a subordinate group captive <em>within</em> its borders. It was a kind of internal empire that also expanded its reach over North America in a series of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Plains-Wars">“Indian wars” in the 1870s and 1880s.</a></p>
<p>“Next to other western democracies,” <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520305557/exceptional-america">notes the legal scholar Mugambi Jouet</a>, “America has historically had a far bigger proportion of racial and ethnic minorities.” Few of those minorities have fit easily within the constitutionally recognized community of <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/preamble">“the people.”</a> </p>
<p>The significance of this simple fact cannot be overstated. American democratic principles of equality before the law came earlier to the U.S. than to Europe or Canada. Nonetheless, those principles grew alongside the raw violence of slavery and colonialism, requiring citizens — or the armed groups charged with protecting them — to hold captive the alienated victims of slavery and colonialism who also lived inside the nation.</p>
<p>The result was a pattern of law enforcement that repeatedly adapted to the dizzying pace of change in America. </p>
<p>Even as modern police departments emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s, for example, presumed criminals such as labour activists or “uppity” Blacks were regarded as existential threats to the lawful population. These sentiments fuelled <a href="https://www.military.com/military-life/6-times-military-was-used-suppress-civilian-uprisings-us.html">violence by the U.S. National Guard</a>, by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pinkerton-National-Detective-Agency">hired thugs known as Pinkertons</a> and <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america">by lynch mobs</a>.</p>
<h2>Broken windows, bloody landscapes</h2>
<p>The most recent echo of the pattern is the so-called <a href="https://cebcp.org/evidence-based-policing/what-works-in-policing/research-evidence-review/broken-windows-policing/">“broken windows” philosophy of policing that emerged</a> in the 1980s and 1990s. </p>
<p>The basic idea here is that fear of violent crime is itself cause for police intervention, requiring pro-active investigation of suspicious places, such as buildings with broken windows or of suspicious persons, often Black men.</p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-floyd-v-city-of-n-y">a federal judge ruled</a> that New York City’s “stop-and-frisk” policy, one of the most aggressive outgrowths of the broken windows philosophy, <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-iv">violated the Fourth</a> <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv">and 14th</a> amendments to the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>But in the face of violent crime, both real and imagined, many communities continue to turn to new variations on the old theme, treating whole swaths of the population as internal enemies to be approached with guns drawn — <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-01-30/tyre-nichols-memphis-black-officers-internalized-racism">including, apparently, police officers who are themselves Black.</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters stand together, one with her arm raised holding a sign that says American Policing equals State-Sanctioned Terrorism." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507429/original/file-20230131-12-s9wdrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators gather during a protest on Jan. 28, 2023, in Atlanta, over the death of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis, Tenn., police.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alex Slitz)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Memphis, for example, the police launched the SCORPION (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods) unit in 2021 <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyre-nichols-former-memphis-police-officer-scorpion-unit/">to combat a surge in murders by flooding the streets with quasi-undercover</a> agents in black hoodies who used traffic stops as opportunities to find drugs or guns.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand the deep and broad appeal of this approach in an apparently fearful country where there are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-than-people-in-the-united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-ownership/">more guns than people</a> and where mass killings are shockingly routine. </p>
<p>It’s equally important to trace the approach itself to specific historical moments, so that clear alternatives can become imaginable — perhaps even possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Opal receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is affiliated with Global Action on Gun Violence. </span></em></p>In the face of violent crime, both real and imagined, too many U.S. police forces adhere to racist philosophies about rooting out ‘internal enemies’ as they did hundreds of years ago.Jason Opal, Professor of History, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1987112023-01-28T00:14:16Z2023-01-28T00:14:16Z‘Acts that defy humanity:’ 3 essential reads on police brutality, race and the power of video evidence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506900/original/file-20230127-10847-1b0tbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=447%2C320%2C5182%2C3426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People attend a candlelight vigil in memory of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 26, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-a-candlelight-vigil-in-memory-of-tyre-nichols-news-photo/1459866539?phrase=tyre%20nichols&adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the case of the five Black, former Memphis police officers accused of murder in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, justice has moved quickly. </p>
<p>In fewer than 30 days after Nichols’ Jan. 10, 2023 death, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/former-memphis-police-officer-indicted-tyre-nichols-death-cnn-reports-2023-01-26/">former officers were charged</a> with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. </p>
<p>The Memphis Police Department released video footage of the officers’ encounter with Nichols on Jan. 27, 2023. And some who’ve seen the video, which includes footage captured by body-worn cameras, cameras mounted on dashboards of police vehicles and security cameras on utility poles in the vicinity, have <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/mother-of-tyre-nichols-calls-for-peaceful-protests-when-horrific-video-is-released/ar-AA16OGVm">described it as “horrific.”</a></p>
<p>Before the video was released <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/us/tyre-nichols-memphis-friday/index.html">Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis told CNN</a>: “You are going to see acts that defy humanity.”</p>
<p>In recent years, as national outrage over the systemic racism within U.S. law enforcement has grown, The Conversation U.S. has published several articles on police brutality, race and the national outrage over systemic racism within the U.S. criminal justice system. </p>
<h2>1. Different interpretations of video evidence</h2>
<p>Media Studies Professor <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/sandra-ristovska">Sandra Ristovska</a> examines the use of video as evidence in state and federal courts in the U.S. and <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-rodney-king-to-george-floyd-how-video-evidence-can-be-differently-interpreted-in-courts-159794">writes</a> about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9JiIdsjfjo">Rodney King</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fpivi5ljhI">George Floyd</a> cases where jurors interpreted video evidence differently. </p>
<p>In the King case, the four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of charges of assault and excessive use of force as the jury believed the video showed a justified response to King’s allegedly frightening actions.</p>
<p>Lead prosecutor Terry White ended his closing arguments by asking the jury: “Now who do you believe, the defendants or your own eyes?”</p>
<p>In the Floyd case, jurors believed their own eyes and convicted Derek Chauvin for the murder of Floyd.</p>
<p>As Ristovska explains, bystander, bodycam and dashcam videos of policing can be powerful forms of evidence.</p>
<p>“Yet judges, attorneys and jurors may see and treat video in varied ways that can lead to inconsistent renderings of justice,” she writes.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-rodney-king-to-george-floyd-how-video-evidence-can-be-differently-interpreted-in-courts-159794">From Rodney King to George Floyd, how video evidence can be differently interpreted in courts</a>
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<h2>2. The racist roots of policing</h2>
<p>As historian <a href="https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/clare-corbould">Clare Corbould</a> explains, police violence that disproportionately targets African Americans long predates portable video cameras. </p>
<p>Where Black Africans were once enslaved to provide cheap labor, Corbould writes, they are now policed, charged, indicted and incarcerated at staggering rates.</p>
<p>“As many have noted since [George] Floyd’s murder, the origins of U.S. policing lie in the control of supposedly disorderly populations,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/relief-at-derek-chauvin-conviction-a-sign-of-long-history-of-police-brutality-159212">Corbould writes</a>, “whether of enslaved people or, after the end of slavery, an impoverished class of laborers including Black people and immigrants.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/relief-at-derek-chauvin-conviction-a-sign-of-long-history-of-police-brutality-159212">Relief at Derek Chauvin conviction a sign of long history of police brutality</a>
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<h2>3. College requirements for police may reduce fatal encounters</h2>
<p>In their peer-reviewed study of data on 235 U.S. city police departments from 2000 to 2016, <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/thaddeus-johnson/">Thaddeus L. Johnson</a> and <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/natasha-johnson/">Natasha N. Johnson</a> found that police forces requiring at least a two-year college degree for employment are less likely to employ officers who engage in actions that cause the deaths of Black and unarmed citizens. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/college-requirements-for-police-forces-can-save-black-lives-but-at-what-cost-187251">they explain</a>, “Our results demonstrated that college minimums are associated with as much as three times lower rates of police-related fatalities involving Black people than police forces without a college degree requirement.”</p>
<p>Their findings further suggest that the impact of a more educated police force may emerge during only the most dangerous encounters that often precede the use of weapons.</p>
<p>More research needs to be done but they conclude that police agencies trying to reduce fatal confrontations should consider ways to recruit college-degreed applicants while at the same time support college attendance among current officers.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/college-requirements-for-police-forces-can-save-black-lives-but-at-what-cost-187251">College requirements for police forces can save Black lives, but at what cost?</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The death of a Black motorist after a beating by five Black Memphis police officers has triggered national outrage over police brutality and systemic racism with the U.S. criminal justice system.Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973682023-01-15T14:37:15Z2023-01-15T14:37:15ZBasquiat: A multidisciplinary artist who denounced violence against African Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503457/original/file-20230106-25-uqa0a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6255%2C2982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jean-Michel Basquiat's _Toxic_, pictured right, is inspired by the American cartoon and denounces the violence of American society.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(MMFA)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The exhibition <a href="https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/jean-michel-basquiat/">Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music</a>, currently running at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, demonstrates that the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which is usually associated with painting, also calls upon other media, including music — the main theme of this exhibition — literature, comic strips, cinema and animation, a much lesser-known aspect of his work.</p>
<p>Basquiat was born in New York in 1960 to a Haitian father and a mother of Puerto Rican descent. In the late 1970s, in collaboration with Al Diaz, he drew enigmatic graffiti <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520383340/reading-basquiat">under the pseudonym SAMO</a>. The artist quickly made a name for himself in the New York art world (becoming friends with Andy Warhol and Madonna, among others). He then produced solo paintings and achieved international fame that continued to grow until his death in 1988.</p>
<p>At the time of the Black Lives Matter movement, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work is more relevant than ever. It highlights racial inequalities and the lack of representation of racialized people in the media, but also the violence suffered by African Americans.</p>
<p>This is what I propose to explore in this article. As a PhD student in literature and performing and screen arts, my research focuses on the interactions between animated film and the visual arts (comics, painting) as well as on the American cartoon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503146/original/file-20230104-129855-7kcpz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jean-Michel Basquiat with his <em>Klaunstance</em> installation, at the Area, in 1985.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo: Ben Buchanan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Love/hate for the cartoon</h2>
<p>As a child, Basquiat <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520305168/the-jean-michel-basquiat-reader">dreamed of becoming a cartoon animator</a>. When he became a painter, the television was always on while he worked in his studio, <a href="https://niuarts.com/2021/02/tvs-influence-on-the-work-of-jean-michael-basquiat-is-the-subject-of-the-next-elizabeth-allen-visiting-scholars-in-art-history-series/">and regularly ran cartoons</a>. These programmes and films were a great source of inspiration for the artist, who integrated several references to animation and comic strips into his paintings.</p>
<p>One of these works, which can be seen in the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts exhibition, is called <em>Toxic</em> (1984). The painting depicts a Black man with his arms in the air, with a collage in the background that mentions several titles of animated shorts made between 1938 and 1948.</p>
<p>The character is in fact a friend of Basquiat’s, the artist Torrick “Toxic” Ablack. So the <a href="https://www.widewalls.ch/artists/toxic">title of the painting refers to him</a>. However, knowing that Basquiat <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520305168/the-jean-michel-basquiat-reader">played with words and their meanings</a>, “Toxic” could also refer to the relationship he had with the animated films that are mentioned behind the character.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503155/original/file-20230104-129650-l0k73w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A multidisciplinary artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat was also a musician. The exhibition devoted to him at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts illustrates this aspect of his work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(MMFA)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Could we say that the films are considered toxic by Jean-Michel Basquiat, despite his admiration for them? In fact, I think there is a certain duality in this picture: the artist loves the cartoon, but he hates it at the same time. The dictionary definition of the word <a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/toxic">“toxic”</a> can mean someone or something that likes “to control and influence other people in a dishonest way.” The term therefore implies that the toxic element (the cartoon in this case) is dangerous in a way that isn’t apparent.</p>
<h2>The violence of cartoons</h2>
<p>The cartoon is often associated with childhood, pleasure, eccentricity.</p>
<p>This is a universe where anything is possible: in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-fpqSdSnD0"><em>Gorilla My Dreams</em></a>, directed by Robert McKimson in 1948, for example, the character Bugs Bunny talks, dresses up as a baby and imitates a monkey. It appears innocent. However, the cartoon can also represent the worst of humanity in a very sneaky way through the incredible violence it contains: the characters hunt each other, chase each other, hit each other, cut each other, kill each other and then start again.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G-fpqSdSnD0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robert McKimson, <em>Gorilla My Dreams</em>, Warner Bros., 1948.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <em>Porky’s Hare Hunt</em>, a film directed by Ben Hardaway in 1938 and quoted in <em>Toxic</em>, the character of Porky is injured by dynamite, abused even though he is in his hospital bed and tries to kill a rabbit. Basquiat, who consumed cartoons every day on television, knew that they were a reflection of 20<sup>th</sup> century American society.</p>
<p>This is an interpretation that could be supported by the title of another of his paintings, which also uses iconography from animation or comics: <em>Television and Cruelty to Animals</em> (1983). This cruelty is also denounced and reproduced in <em>An Opera</em> (1985), which shows Popeye being beaten with the words “ senseless violence ” above his head, as well as in <a href="https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/oeuvres/14684/"><em>A Panel of Experts</em></a> (1982), where we see matchstick men hitting each other right next to an enormous revolver.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503115/original/file-20230104-14-ck5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The painting <em>A Panel of Experts</em>, produced in 1982, denounces cruelty and violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(MMFA, gift of Ira Young. Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo: Douglas M. Parker)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The violence that Basquiat denounces is so present in the cartoon that it seems, to a certain extent, to have become commonplace, like the violence seen on television newscasts (which he probably watched while he was painting).</p>
<h2>Denouncing racial stereotypes</h2>
<p>These cartoons are also violent because they often perpetuate racial stereotypes (not to mention the many stereotypes related to sexual orientation, gender, sex, body appearance, etc.).</p>
<p>Bob Clampett’s 1940 film <em>Patient Porky</em>, which is also mentioned in <em>Toxic</em>, features a scene in which a elevator attendant grossly and monstrously parodies a Black character. In <em>Untitled (All Stars)</em> (1983), Basquiat cites Max Fleischer’s 1920 film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WXrrOIWZKo"><em>The Chinaman</em></a>, which features a highly caricatured Asian character and Koko the Clown putting makeup on to impersonate him.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_WXrrOIWZKo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Max Fleischer, <em>The Chinaman</em>, Bray Studios, 1920.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By placing elements referring to animation in his compositions, Basquiat attempts to denounce a stereotypical and unfair worldview where <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520305168/the-jean-michel-basquiat-reader">racialized people are portrayed in an unrealistic way</a>. Basquiat said that if he had not been a painter, he would have been a filmmaker and would have told stories where Black people <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520305168/the-jean-michel-basquiat-reader">were portrayed as human beings, not negatively</a>.</p>
<p>So, the title of the painting <em>Toxic</em> carries several meanings. It refers both to the main subject (Torrick “Toxic” Ablack), but also to its relationship to popular culture and to animation, in this case.</p>
<p>The <em>Toxic</em> character has his arms in the air and his hands coloured red. Could it be that this toxic relationship has made his hands dirty? Or, specifically, that the character — because the cartoon has continually portrayed Black people in a pejorative manner — is now being portrayed as a criminal? Indeed, his position indicates that he appears to be under arrest.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503154/original/file-20230104-105026-uxktgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Dog Bite/Ax to Grind</em> (1983).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Licensed by Artestar, New York)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This hypothesis is very likely since Basquiat produced several works denouncing police brutality against African Americans, including <em>The Death of Michael Stewart (Defacement)</em> (1983).</p>
<p>Basquiat died prematurely in 1988 at the age of 27. Other artists from the Black community, such as Montréal painters <a href="https://helloteenadultt.com/">Kezna Dalz, aka Teenadult</a>, <a href="https://www.manuelmathieu.com/">Manuel Mathieu</a>, and animation filmmaker <a href="http://www.martinechartrand.net/">Martine Chartrand</a> have, in their own way, taken up his struggle and continue to fight for greater visibility of Black people in the arts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197368/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Harbour's doctoral research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p>In the age of the Black Lives Matter movement, Basquiat’s work is more relevant than ever. It highlights racial inequality and violence against racialized people.John Harbour, Doctorant en littérature et arts de la scène et de l'écran (concentration cinéma), Université LavalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1958982023-01-09T18:41:38Z2023-01-09T18:41:38ZTwo years after the defund the police movement, police budgets increase across Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503298/original/file-20230105-18-om6zv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3589%2C2629&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman carries an umbrella outside a protest to defund the police in front of Toronto Police Service headquarters in July 2020. Police budgets have increased, not decreased, since then. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/two-years-after-the-defund-the-police-movement--police-budgets-increase-across-canada" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/15/defund-police-movement-us-victories-what-next">worldwide protests against police racism and violence in the summer of 2020</a> brought greater public attention to police spending. </p>
<p>In city after city, activists and other residents demanded that governments defund the police and reinvest in communities. Public support for this demand was evident in the streets, as well as in public opinion polls that registered <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-and-polls/Canadians-Divided-On-Whether-To-Defund-Police">significant support for defunding the police</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thin-skinned-blue-line-police-fight-against-defunding-showing-their-true-colours-183784">Thin-skinned blue line: Police fight against defunding, showing their true colours</a>
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<p>Despite that support, the demand to defund the police and reinvest in communities has not been implemented in any Canadian city. </p>
<p>In fact, my research shows police budgets have continued to increase in all major cities. A proposal to increase Toronto’s police budget by nearly $50 million, for example, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-police-board-budget-review-1.6707656">has been passed unanimously by the force’s board.</a></p>
<p>There are, however, big differences in the ways cities have addressed spending on policing since 2020, and there are small signs of change that could be built upon in the future.</p>
<h2>Policing spending before and after 2020</h2>
<p>As the illustration below shows, police spending in Canada increased both before and after the 2020 protests. No city, in other words, defunded their police. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graph below lists police spending before and after 2020." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503334/original/file-20230105-22-7azblc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A graph shows police spending before and after 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are differences, however, in the amount of the budget increases. Some cities increased police spending at roughly the same rate before and after 2020. Ottawa, Calgary, Durham Region, York Region, Vancouver and Winnipeg fall into this category. </p>
<p>The protests, it seems, had little effect on these cities’ spending decisions. </p>
<p>Two cities, Toronto and Peel Region, increased policing spending at a much lower rate after the 2020 protests. The change is particularly apparent in the case of Toronto, which increased police spending by 11.4 per cent in 2018-2020 and 2.3 per cent in 2020-2022. </p>
<p>Only one city moved in the opposite direction. Montréal, rather than either defunding the police or reducing the rate of budget increases, increased police spending at a much greater rate after 2020 — much more than in the earlier period and more than any other city in Canada. </p>
<h2>Unbudgeted police spending</h2>
<p>While public debates tend to focus on budgeted spending, there are sometimes important differences between police budgets and actual spending. Below, we see the difference between budgeted and actual police spending for the 10 police forces in 2017-2021. As we can see, half of the police forces spent slightly under their allocated budget, while the other half spent more than their budget.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graph shows unbudgeted police spending." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503335/original/file-20230105-18-31gd4y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A graph shows unbudgeted police spending.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As we can see, half of the police forces spent slightly under their allocated budget, while the other half spent more than their budget.</p>
<p>The major outlier, again, is Montréal. The city went over budget by an average of $29.7 million per year. No other police force came anywhere close to this level of overspending. Vancouver and Peel Region, the closest comparisons, overspent by an average of $2.45 million and $3 million, respectively.</p>
<p>One important source of police overspending is overtime, a normal part of police operations. In some cases, however, police forces incur significantly more overtime than budgeted. </p>
<p>As we can see above, most cities go over budget on overtime. Vancouver, Durham Region, and Ottawa go over budget by over 25 per cent each year, while Montréal more than doubles this rate of overspending. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A police officer is seen from behind outside a convention centre. Police is written on the back of his jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503293/original/file-20230105-16-9diaja.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Montréal police patrol outside the fenced off perimeter of the city’s convention centre ahead of the COP15 UN conference on biodiversity in December 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We can also see, finally, that overtime does not always fully explain police overspending. In the case of Vancouver, Durham Region, Ottawa and Toronto, excess spending on overtime is greater than their overall excess spending. In these cases, then, overtime can be considered a significant reason for their pattern of overspending. </p>
<p>In the case of Montréal, however, excess overtime accounts for just over half of overall excess spending. If the city eliminated excess overtime spending, it would still exceed its overall budget by the largest amount of any Canadian police force.</p>
<h2>Broken promises and pathways forward</h2>
<p>In the midst of the 2020 protests, many elected officials promised to address longstanding problems of police violence and systemic racism. </p>
<p>In various ways, as <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/12/13/after-the-2020-protests-we-were-told-things-would-be-different-so-why-are-police-budgets-and-powers-still-expanding.html">Robyn Maynard, author of <em>Policing Black Lives</em>, explains</a>, they promised a “racial reckoning.” Political leaders, Maynard argues, “assured the public that they had heard the demands that drew tens of thousands into the streets for weeks and months.” </p>
<p>My research shows these promises were broken. Despite the protests and strong public support for defunding the police and reinvesting in communities, no such change has occurred in Canada. The promised “racial reckoning” has yet to occur.</p>
<p>It is worth taking notice, however, of the police forces that did implement smaller increases after 2020 and how they did so. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A police officer runs with his gun drawn. A police cruiser and Canadian flags are behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=548%2C0%2C1954%2C1440&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503296/original/file-20230105-20-j0nxbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Ottawa police officer runs with his weapon drawn in Ottawa in the midst of the Parliament Hill shootings in October 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Toronto, Calgary, and Edmonton all passed smaller police spending increases after 2020, while also channelling funding toward non-police emergency response teams. This involves alternative responses to emergency 911 calls of a social rather than criminal nature. </p>
<p>It’s no surprise to find that the cities that invested in non-police response teams were also the cities that passed the lowest police spending increases since 2020. The potential of non-police response teams to respond to certain categories of emergency calls is enormous. </p>
<h2>Emergency calls diverted</h2>
<p>The city of Seattle found that <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21018129/idt-report-on-reimagining-policing-and-community-safety-in-seattle.pdf">50 to 80 per cent of 911 calls</a> could be diverted to a non-police team, while Canadian police forces have suggested that <a href="https://www.edmonton.ca/public-files/assets/document?path=PDF/SaferForAll-CSWBTaskForce-Report-March30_2021.pdf">between 32 per cent</a> <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/montreal/772079/fady-dagher-promet-un-equilibre-entre-la-repression-et-la-prevention">and 80 per cent</a> of calls could be so diverted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large crowd of people, some carrying Black Lives Matter signs, approach a line of police officers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503295/original/file-20230105-24-lndl6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this July 2020 photo, police clash with Black Lives Matter protesters in Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other pathways, however, need to be pursued as well. It’s not enough, for example, to respond better to emergency calls pertaining to social issues. The social issues themselves need to be addressed beyond and before any emergency call.</p>
<p>Reinvesting in communities means investing in social housing, mental health care, safe drug consumption sites and other forms of harm reduction. Because these interventions reduce the need for police work, there is a clear case for redirecting police funding toward them. </p>
<p>As cities across Canada evaluate budget priorities for 2023, the broken promises of the last two years and tiny steps toward a different future need to be part of the discussion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows police budgets have continued to increase in all major Canadian cities in the aftermath of the defund the police movement.Ted Rutland, Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.