Texas, monuments, toward a politics of self-reckoning
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Published:2021-12
Issue:6
Volume:14
Page:1301-1313
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ISSN:1750-6980
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Container-title:Memory Studies
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Memory Studies
Abstract
In this article, I examine the efforts of a group of anti-Confederate monument activists in Williamson County, Texas. The article begins with the history of the monument itself, 100 years before the activists initiated their efforts. The intransigence to removing the Confederate monument is symbolic of white resistance to struggles for racial equality more broadly. Second, I discuss how the local legal impasse has contributed to distinct anti-monument activist strategies that deploy counternarratives and memories, from performances, to challenging narrative claims regarding who is more patriotic. Finally, I explore the politics of self-reckoning—the process by which white people find that they have to answer for racism deep within themselves as well as in relation to violent white supremacy and the legal and institutional fortress that protects whiteness generally. Battling both racists and racist institutions is hard and lengthy, and monument activism persistently exposes what is at stake.
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Subject
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology,Cultural Studies,Social Psychology
Reference27 articles.
1. Barr J (2021) Former Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody arrested on new charges from deadly arrest with Live PD cameras rolling. KXAN News, 31 March, 2021. Available at: https://www.kxan.com/investigations/former-williamson-county-sheriff-robert-chody-arrested-on-new-charges-from-deadly-arrest-with-live-pd-cameras-rolling/ (accessed 19 July 2021).