Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication | Open Access Articles

Ua37/2 Statement About Recent Racist Events On Campus, Jane Olmsted

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Email issued by Jane Olmsted to all WKU faculty & staff regarding racist activities on campus and the appropriate response to them.

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Strange Fruit: Race, Terror, And The War On Terror, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This poem examines drone warfare as a form of lynching. “Strange Fruit” links the deaths of Pakistani children Zeerak and Maria Khan to the murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, documented in the most infamous lynching photograph in U.S. history.

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Of All Days: Critical Pedagogy Outside The Classroom, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

A student at the author’s college pens a racist column on immigration for the school newspaper. Two departments, including the author’s, send campus-wide emails denouncing the rhetoric. A firestorm erupts, as much over the emails as over the op-ed. Years later, the student visits the author unannounced.

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Commercial Content Moderation: Digital Laborers' Dirty Work, Sarah T. Roberts

Media Studies Publications

In this chapter from the forthcoming Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online (Noble and Tynes, Eds., 2016), I introduce both the concept of commercial content moderation (CCM) work and workers, as well as the ways in which this unseen work affects how users experience the Internet of social media and user-generated content (UGC). I tie it to issues of race and gender by describing specific cases of viral videos that transgressed norms and by providing examples from my interviews with CCM workers. The interventions of CCM workers on behalf of the platforms for which they labor directly contradict …

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Can Films Speak The Truth? Mathieu Kassovitz’S La Haine (1995) And Philippe Faucon’S La Désintégration (2011), Annie Jouan-Westlund Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

La Haine, (Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) and La Désintégration (Dir. Philippe Faucon, 2011), set in France’s urban periphery, depict the struggle of second and third-generation immigrants growing up in the housing projects and their desire to live like ‘other’ French young people. The analysis offers a comparative study of the films’ reception with a community of viewers made of American students in a Contemporary French Culture course. Following the three paradigms of exclusion (social, racial, and cultural); gender representation; and aestheticism and realism, this study demonstrates that, within certain limits, these cinematic propositions, of similar prophetic nature but different …

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The Fire This Time: Ta-Nehisi Coates’S “Between The World And Me”, Bill Yousman

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

In 1963, James Baldwin published his seminal The Fire Next Time. The first half of this foundational work was a letter to his nephew regarding America and race. In 2015 the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates published a letter to his son, also about America and race. The literary device employed is no coincidence. Toni Morrison has anointed Coates as the successor to James Baldwin, and while that is a heavy burden for any 40 year old to bear, it is one that he just might manage to handle with grace.

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The Spectacle Of Black Violence: Historicizing Worldstarhiphop.Com, Caylon Fowlkes

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Have you ever watched, and possibly laughed, at videos of Blacks fighting? You’re not the only one. Worldstarhiphop.com was created in 2005; it is an online hub for “everything” in regards to hip hop culture. This includes sports highlights and new rap artists as well as “crazy fights” mainly between Black people. The videos are primarily made by Blacks and exploited by many. The purpose of this project is to investigate the attraction society has to the behavior of black youth. There are many things that contribute to this phenomenon of violence occurring among black youth. I have chosen to …

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My Nba All-Star Team Of Socially Conscience Players, Richard Lapchick

UCF Forum

I have been trying to use the sports platform and the power of sports to address serious social issues during my entire adult life.

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Live, Learn – And Let Live, Anthony Major

UCF Forum

I grew up in a segregated community in Florida and attended supposedly “separate but equal” schools in a small town that had separate water fountains, bathrooms and even beaches, among other restrictions. We were expected to cross the street when a white woman was approaching and never look a white man in the eyes - that is if you didn’t want to appear defiant.

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Sagging Pants Does Not Equate To Sagging Values, Vanessa Lopez-Littleton

UCF Forum

I teach a class in the DeVos Sport Business Management graduate program at the For years I’ve debated the issue of people wearing sagging pants with anyone who cared to listen. I’ve hesitated to speak publicly for fear people would think I was condoning the style of dress. For the record, I believe style is a matter of personal expression.

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I'M Hopeful The Power Of Sport Will Expand To Spur Social Change, Richard E. Lapchick

UCF Forum

I teach a class in the DeVos Sport Business Management graduate program at the University of Central Florida on ethical and moral principles in sport. Last week we welcomed a distinguished panel to our class, which included: Charlie Freeman, executive vice president of the Orlando Magic; Linda Landman-Gonzalez, vice president for government affairs and community relations for the Orlando Magic; Brett Lashbrook, chief operating officer of Orlando City Soccer; and Keith Lee, the chief operating officer of the National Consortium of Academics and Sport.

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Black Voices, White Power: Members Of The Black Press Make Meaning Of Media Hegemony, Robert Redding Jr.

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

When a former black editor says he was told that blacks do not care about news by his white boss and a black deejay is told that his commentary is too hard hitting and not to go to an event featuring a black militant leader by his white boss, these personal accounts could be extrapolated to mean that there may still be a world filled with white privilege and an ensuing hegemonic bifurcation in a Communication Studies context. This study utilizes Afrocentricity and the agency that is denied to these two individuals to provide insight into a world where these …

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The Future Will Require Learning How To Exist In A Multicultural Society, Vanessa Lopez-Littleton

UCF Forum

Why should I have to tell my sons to respect the police?

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Critique Of The Appropriation On Black Culture By White Suburban Youth, Julie Lemley

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This critique is an examination of the appropriation of black culture by white suburban youth as being not only racist, but sexist. The primary view of this phenomenon is through the lens of hip hop culture and its commercialization by patriarchally dominated white corporations to increase profit by targeting the music to white suburban youth. This creates a distinct change within the critical content of the culture as an original context by replacing it with a focus that objectifies women, encourages violence and glamorizes the consumption of drugs and alcohol. In addition, there exists an intentional promotion of luxury consumerism …

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Systemic Racism Of The Unicef Germany's Ads Depicting Children In Blackface, April Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

In the summer of 2007, UNICEF Germany released four ads containing the use of Blackface. However, neither the German population, nor UNICEF Germany found the use of Blackface insulting or racist when in fact Americans, who have the history of Blackface Theater, were appalled at the display of white German children with mud on their faces, portraying Africans. Through the use of Joe R. Feagin's theory of systemic racism, this paper rhetorically analyzed whether the UNICEF ads should be considered racist outside the American experience of Blackfacing and Blackface Theater. The analysis revealed the UNICEF ads are racist under the …

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I Wish The Sport I Love – Soccer – Could Help Eliminate Injustice Around World, Erin O'Flaherty

UCF Forum

Every four years soccer fans around the globe focus on the FIFA World Cup, this year being held in Brazil. The national teams of countries compete to become World Cup champions in the name of patriotism and pride. I am a fan of almost all sports, but especially soccer – so I cannot contain my excitement for the upcoming matches beginning June 12.

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A Christian Understanding Of Aesthetic Agency: A Theological Framework Of Resistance To Cultural Imperialism, Elise Edwards

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

Aesthetic agency refers to conditions, capacities, and states that inform artistic forms of acting and exerting power on social structures. In resistance to the marginalization of women of color, aesthetic agency is exercised through creative acts of culture-making and critique of such practices to challenge domination and representation of the oppressed other. To support this work as a feminist Christian ethicist, I construct a theological framework for aesthetic agency. This paper proposes a theological understanding of transformative aesthetics and then describes the exercise of aesthetic agency for Christian communities by using a television special, Black Girls Rock! as an example.

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A Developmental Approach To Civility And Bystander Intervention, Jennifer Q. Mccary

College Life Publications

The students of color in your classroom experience discrimination every day, in small and large ways. They don’t often see themselves represented in their textbooks, and encounter hostility in school, and outside. For them race is a constant reality, and an issue they need, and want, to discuss. Failure to do so can inhibit their academic performance.

Failure to discuss race prevents White students from getting a real, critical and deep understanding of our society and their place in it. It is essential for the well-being of all students that they learn to have constructive conversations about the history of …

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Using The 2008 Presidential Election To Think About “Playing The Race Card”, Ronald Lee, Aysel Morin

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro were accused of “playing the race card” during the 2008 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. This essay explores the different forms race cards may assume and the dangers each poses to the public dialogue. Moving away from the traditional focus on persuasive effects, the Clinton and Ferraro utterances are analyzed as argumentative discourses. Then, critical standards are promulgated for evaluating their reasonableness.

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Commentary, Clyde Taylor

Trotter Review

There's some buzz about Bill O'Reilly's racially ignorant remarks about Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem. But the darling of left-liberal media jokesters, Jon Stewart, had a good time on his Friday, September 21 show, first, at the expense of President Bush, and then at the expense of Nelson Mandela. Blogs are cheerleading the way Stewart caught Bush in another dumb statement — that Nelson Mandela is dead. The only comments I find on the web are kudos for Stewart's bashing of Bush. No mention of Stewart animalizing Mandela with sounds that echo the mumbo-jumbo sneer at nonwhite speech, or of his …

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Language, Racism, And Ethnicity, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

While ethnic prejudices can be expressed in and through language, they are not, however, intrinsically linguistic in nature. They are, instead, supralinguistic concepts that become disguised as linguistic ones and imported into the theater of language. The pathways that facilitate this importation have been made by the repeated interconnections between the concept of language and the concept of race. In other words, language in the service of racism and ethnocentrism cannot occur without conceptualizing language and race in similar ways. Accordingly, the identification of language with race is not possible without the genetic misprisions that create the myth of race …

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William Jefferson Clinton, "Racism In The United States" (16 October 1995), Jill M. Weber

Communication Studies Faculty Scholarship

In "Racism in the United States," President Bill Clinton acknowledged racial differences and called upon Americans to "clean our house of racism." Maintaining that the discussion of differences was the first step in alleviating racial tension, Clinton made dialogue a centerpiece of his race initiative. Clinton's approach to civil rights and his emphasis on dialogue marked an important step in the ongoing debates over civil rights in America by illustrating a president's role in shaping such debates.

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Towelheads, Diapers, And Faggots: Reviving The Turban, Jasbir Puar

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In the days and weeks following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on September 11, there has been a rapid proliferation of mocking images of a turbaned Osama bin Laden, not to mention of the turban itself. In a photo-montage circulating from Stileproject.com, even George Bush has been sporting a bin Laden-esque turban. Another internet favorite is a picture of bin Laden superimposed into a 7-11 convenience store scene as a cashier. Posters that appeared in midtown Manhattan only days after the attacks show a turbaned caricature of bin Laden being anally penetrated by the Empire State building. The …

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Full-Text Articles in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication

Ua37/2 Statement About Recent Racist Events On Campus, Jane Olmsted

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Strange Fruit: Race, Terror, And The War On Terror, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Of All Days: Critical Pedagogy Outside The Classroom, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Commercial Content Moderation: Digital Laborers' Dirty Work, Sarah T. Roberts

Media Studies Publications

Can Films Speak The Truth? Mathieu Kassovitz’S La Haine (1995) And Philippe Faucon’S La Désintégration (2011), Annie Jouan-Westlund Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The Fire This Time: Ta-Nehisi Coates’S “Between The World And Me”, Bill Yousman

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

The Spectacle Of Black Violence: Historicizing Worldstarhiphop.Com, Caylon Fowlkes

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

My Nba All-Star Team Of Socially Conscience Players, Richard Lapchick

UCF Forum

Live, Learn – And Let Live, Anthony Major

UCF Forum

Sagging Pants Does Not Equate To Sagging Values, Vanessa Lopez-Littleton

UCF Forum

I'M Hopeful The Power Of Sport Will Expand To Spur Social Change, Richard E. Lapchick

UCF Forum

Black Voices, White Power: Members Of The Black Press Make Meaning Of Media Hegemony, Robert Redding Jr.

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The Future Will Require Learning How To Exist In A Multicultural Society, Vanessa Lopez-Littleton

UCF Forum

Critique Of The Appropriation On Black Culture By White Suburban Youth, Julie Lemley

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Systemic Racism Of The Unicef Germany's Ads Depicting Children In Blackface, April Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

I Wish The Sport I Love – Soccer – Could Help Eliminate Injustice Around World, Erin O'Flaherty

UCF Forum

A Christian Understanding Of Aesthetic Agency: A Theological Framework Of Resistance To Cultural Imperialism, Elise Edwards

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

A Developmental Approach To Civility And Bystander Intervention, Jennifer Q. Mccary

College Life Publications

Using The 2008 Presidential Election To Think About “Playing The Race Card”, Ronald Lee, Aysel Morin

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Commentary, Clyde Taylor

Trotter Review

Language, Racism, And Ethnicity, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

William Jefferson Clinton, "Racism In The United States" (16 October 1995), Jill M. Weber

Communication Studies Faculty Scholarship

Towelheads, Diapers, And Faggots: Reviving The Turban, Jasbir Puar

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)