Spectacular whiteness
The tactics and mediation of white protests for Black Lives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12601928 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Vilanova (0000-0002-9155-2681, Lehigh University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 408-424 |
| Publication date | 2024-09-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1367-8779 • E-ISSN: 1460-356X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13678779241279325 |
| OpenAlex | W4402223068 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 42 |
This article critically examines the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings in Portland, Oregon, focusing on the strategic and rhetorical deployment of whiteness in support of Black lives in the protest space. It observes that whiteness, as mediated through various news and journalistic texts, assumes a privileged position in this moment as spectacular, exploring the consequences of leveraging whites’ exceptional status in support of Black lives. The analysis focuses on two emblematic case studies: Christopher David, a white Navy veteran beaten by federal troops and ‘Naked Athena’, a white-presenting woman who posed nude in front of advancing police. Each is analyzed to understand how the protesters’ actions reveal a heuristic of spectacular whiteness for understanding the significance of Portland-based protests for Black lives. Analysis of media representations of each case reveals the ways whiteness inappropriately informed how the protests were narrativized
Aesthetics · Art · Media studies · Mediation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · White (mutation · Critical Race Theory in Education · Gender Studies · Race, History, and American Society · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
What Is a Case?
Mobilizing public opinion
Postracial Resistance
Represent and Destroy
Policing the Crisis
Black Lives Matter Coverage
An Obscured View of “Both Sides”
The Souls of Mixed Folk
Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” and the Politics of Cultural Memory
Archaeology of Knowledge
Protests, Media Coverage, and a Hierarchy of Social Struggle
Making #BlackLivesMatter in the Shadow of Selma
White lies
White Individualism and the Problem of White Co-optation of the Term “Racism”
Site-specific television as urban renewal
Reporting From the Whites of Their Eyes
Disciplining Black activism
Lynching and Spectacle
White
Racialization of News
Possessive Investment in Whiteness
A movement divided
News media and the racialization of protest
It Takes a Tragedy to Arouse Them
Whiteness
A phenomenology of whiteness
The White Space
Rethinking the Public Sphere
Formations of White Public Space
An Empirical Assessment of Whiteness Theory
Can you be Black and Look at This
Scaling Social Movements Through Social Media
Raciontologies
Military Whiteness
The duality of spectacle and secrecy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |