Black Lives Matter and Police Violence

Contributors to the LINGANTH email list share readings and other resources for use in linguistic anthropology classes on topics of police violence, the Black Lives Matter movement, and structural racism in the United States and elsewhere.

Elise Berman of UNC Charlotte asked:

I need to talk about police violence. I was wondering if anyone had planned specific lessons on police violence and black lives matter in linguistic anthropology classes and would be willing to share what they did? There are obviously a lot of different connections.

Colleagues Hillary Dick, Inmaculada García Sánchez, Meghanne Barker, Bonnie McElhinny, Jacqueline Messing, Michael Prentice, Donna Auston, Tyanna Slobe, Adam Hodges, Michele Koven, Shannon Bischoff, Rebecca Campbell, Krystal Smalls, and Steven Black responded with the following recommendations.

The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project collects anthropological work addressing the confluence of race, policing and justice. Another project drawing from  a variety of fields is the “Black Lives Matter Fall 2016” syllabus from Frank Leon Roberts at New York University.

Readings in linguistic anthropology include:

• Alim, H. Samy and Geneva Smitherman. 2012. “A.W.B. (Articulate While Black): Language and and Racial Politics in the United States,” Pp. 31-63 (Chapt. 2), and, “Change the Game: Language, Education, and the Cruel Fallout of Racism” Pp. 167-197 (Chapt. 6). IN Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in The U.S. Oxford University Press.
• Auston, Donna. January 16, 2015. “Recalled to Life: On the Meaning and Power of a Die-In Posted.” Anthropology Now.
• Auston, Donna. 2016. OTG 3: Finding Black Death on a Quiet Hilltop (On The Ground series). Anthropology News.
• Bonilla, Yarimar, and Jonathan Rosa. 2015.  #Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States. American Ethnologist. (includes links to supplemental materials)
• Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2003. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield.
• Cunningham, Clark and Bonnie McElhinny. 1995. Taking it to the Streets: Putting Discourse Analysis to the Service of a Public Defender’s Office. Clinical Law Review 2(1):285-314.
• Goodwin, Charles. 1994. Professional Vision. American Anthropologist 96(3): 606-633.
• Hill, Jane. 2008. The Everyday Language of White Racism. Wiley Blackwell.
• Hodges, Adam. 2015. Ideologies of Language and Race in US Media Discourse about the Trayvon Martin Shooting. Language in Society 44 (3): 401–423.
• Hodges, Adam. 2016. Hunting for “Racists”: Tape Fetishism and the Intertextual Enactment and Reproduction of the Dominant Understanding of Racism in US Society. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 26 (1): 26–40.
• Hodges, Adam. 2016. Accusatory and Exculpatory Moves in the Hunting for ‘Racists’ Language Game. Language & Communication 47: 1-14.
• McElhinny, Bonnie. 2003. Fearful, Forceful Agents of the Law: Ideologies about Language and Gender in Police Officers’ Narratives about the Use of Physical Force. Pragmatics 13(2):253-284.
• McElhinny, Bonnie. 2001. See No Evil, Speak No Evil: White Police Officers’ Arguments Around Race and Affirmative Action. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(1): 65-78.
• McElhinny, Bonnie. 1998. “‘I Don’t Smile Much Anymore’: Affect, Gender and the Discourse of Pittsburgh Police Officers.” In Jennifer Coates ed. Language and Gender: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 309-327.
• McElhinny, Bonnie. 1995. “Challenging Hegemonic Masculinities: Female and Male Police Officers Handling Domestic Violence.” In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz eds. Gender Articulated. NY: Routledge. 217-243.
• McElhinny, Bonnie. 1994 “An Economy of Affect: Objectivity, Masculinity and the Gendering of Police Work.”  In Andrea Cornwall and Nancy  Lindisfarne eds. Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies. NY: Routledge. 159-171.
• Rickford, John. 2016. Linguistic Society of America 2016 Annual Meeting Presidential Address (video).
• Slobe, Tyanna. 2016. Creepy-Ass Cracker in post-racial America: Don West’s examination of Rachel Jeantel in the George Zimmerman murder trial. Text & Talk 36(5): 613-635.

[Updated 9/26. Additional readings added.]