#BlackatUARK: Digital Counterpublic Memories of Anti-Black Racism on Campus — Rhetoric & Composition

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Mar 2023 Open Access

#BlackatUARK: Digital Counterpublic Memories of Anti-Black Racism on Campus

T. Jake Dionne Schlumberger (Ireland) ; Joe Edward Hatfield Schlumberger (Ireland) ; Gabrielle Willingham Schlumberger (Ireland)

Abstract

After #BlackLivesMatter protests in summer 2020, many leaders in the US South reevaluated monuments dedicated to the confederate and segregation eras. Black affiliates of the University of Arkansas used the Twitter hashtag #BlackatUARK to demand the removal of memorials commemorating a segregationist senator and share their experiences of anti-Black racism on campus. We argue that #BlackatUARK provides a counterpublic memorial of campus life that opposes and transforms dominant public memories, geographies, and subjectivities. Our analysis of the hashtag expands the conceptual boundaries of the kairos/metanoia partnership to show how digital counterpublic memories gain momentum and produce tangible rhetorical effects across both digital and nondigital contexts. During its circulation, the hashtag opens and sustains a kairotic moment fueled by the exigent flow of memories of anti-Black racism on campus. Simultaneously, the hashtag ignites a metanoic moment whereby allies mobilize their regret about a shameful past to plan a more just future.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 2023-03-15
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2022.2095425
Open Access: OA PDF Hybrid
Topics: race and writing public rhetoric

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Kalim (2024)

Unveiling the affective digital counterpublic: A rhetorical ecological analysis…

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Cites in this index (7)

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Temporal Containment and the Singularity of Anti-Blackness: Saying Her Name in …

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The Lost Cause, Trump Time, and the Necessity of Impatience

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Digital LGBTQ Archives as Sites of Public Memory and Pedagogy

Rhetoric & Public Affairs
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The Queer Kairotic: Digital Transgender Suicide Memories and Ecological Rhetori…

Rhetoric Society Quarterly
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Cultivating Metanoia in Twitter Publics: Analyzing and Producing Bots of Protes…

Computers and Composition

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<i>Kairos</i>: On the Limits to Our (Rhetorical) Situation

Rhetoric Society Quarterly
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Rhetoric Society Quarterly

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