Communicating Gender, Race, and Class: 2020

For this post, I have selected the new Netflix show "#blackAF" and the concept of a networked counterpublic. Dr. Sarah Jackson discussed this concept in a video on our course blog that came from her extensive research on hashtag activism, particularly in the Black community. According to our course reading, a networked counterpublic intends to draw mainstream attention to the needs and voices of marginalized communities. Examples include #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #Oscars SoWhite. "#blackAF" is no exception. In the new  Netflix  series named after that networked hashtag , released in its entirety April 17, 2020, an affluent Black family navigates the privileges and struggles of wealth in a society founded upon race stratification that tokenizes Black success. According to a CNN article: " The main preoccupation of '#blackAF' is the spiritual and intellectual challenge that being filthy rich poses, as Barris luxuriates in his opulent ...

For our last reading and discussion topic this semester, it is significant that we were planning to discuss stereotypes of Asian Americans during our last week, even prior to the increased racism perpetuated on Asian Americans following misperceptions of COVID-19. As with earlier posts, please read through the material from all the links (including the one in the previous sentence) and view the included videos to contribute in an informed, respectful conversation below or on the Scholar discussion forum. We begin with a screening of this clip sharing some of the history in which the myth of Asian Americans as the " model minority " emerged. An article from the Urban Institute illuminates some of the economic realities that debunk the myth. Research published by the National Association of Independents Schools provides tools to intervene in the myth from an education context. Highlights from Ch. 39:   “Are Asian Americans Becoming ‘White’”? by Min Zhou: Zhou ...

The Ch. 24 reading by Donovan Lessard examined the ways that common urban ideologies of revitalization regard particular groups of gay people as valued citizens because of their class status and race while they render other groups of LGBTQ people as invisible. Lessard's case study illuminates spatial processes of urban decline and renewal that lead to differential perceptions of the value of queerness to a neighborhood, exacerbating existing race and class divides among LGBTQ people. Since I cannot access the original book that the Lessard article came out of, I have supplemented a PDF on a similar topic, listed as "Redefining Home in the Land of Inopportunity," on Scholar. The Scholar article discusses extensively issues of media (in)visibility as a crucial, structural, intersectional understanding of LGBTQ inequality in housing. To discuss queer spaces, let's take a hyperlocal look at the story surrounding the closing of Hershee Bar , one of the (formerly) olde...

53. “(Re)Imagining Intersectional Democracy from Black Feminism to Hashtag Activism,” Sarah J. Jackson Sarah J. Jackson - #Hashtag Activism: The Rise and Influence of Networked Counterpublics from Engagement Lab on Vimeo . Jackson writes about the intersectional lessons of the Black Lives Matter movement, which can be traced to the legacy of the larger Black freedom movement and also to the more recent work of millennial Black activist organizations like the Dream Defenders and the Black Youth Project 100. These recent movements have been created or heavily influenced by Black feminist principles. Millennial movements have eschewed the respectability politics that guided the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and have worked instead to center the voices, experiences, and knowledge of those most often at the margins. Black Lives Matter, founded by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, has insisted on radical intersectionality: Garza writes that the org...

32. “Loving Across Racial Divides,” Amy Steinbugler In spite of dramatic positive shifts in public attitudes toward racial intermarriage, only a small percentage of people in the United States date and marry across racial lines. Steinbugler’s research explores the ways that race impacts daily life for interracial couples, finding that racism continues to shape everyday life in three primary ways. First, because of racial neighborhood segregation, many interracial couples face challenges of belonging and ease in residential spaces. Second, in spite of intimate relationships, interracial couples may not share the same perspectives on race and racism: White partners in  interracial relationships  can reflect the attitudes of many White Americans who question the scope and severity of contemporary racism. Finally, interracial couples sometimes reflect the power of racial-gender stereotypes within their relationships. Some highlights: Current public attitudes toward racial ...

The course  blog  post for this entry seems to have some technical visibility issues when published that I cannot fix. This same post is in the Scholar Discussion Forum . Highlights from Ch. 30 “LGBT Sexuality and Families at the Start of the Twenty-First Century,” Mignon R. Moore and Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer Moore and Stambolis-Ruhstorfer review and summarize current research literature on LGBT families . Major research streams include research into the politics of defining family to include same-sex couples, population characteristics of same-sex parent families, and the legal and cultural challenges faced by parents and children in same-sex partner families. A few key findings they highlight include: Continued public ambivalence in the United States toward the inclusion of same-sex couples in definitions of families An increasing number of lesbian- and gay-parent families in the United States Same-sex parenting as more c...