Deflective Whiteness: Co-Opting Black and Latinx Identity Politics

In Deflective Whiteness, Hannah Noel repositions Whiteness studies in relation to current discussions around racialized animus and White victimhood, demonstrating how White supremacy adapts its discursive strategies by cannibalizing the language and rhetoric of Black and Latinx social justice movements. Analyzing a wide-ranging collection of cultural objects--memes, oration, music, advertisements, and news coverage--Noel shows how White deflection sustains and reproduces structures of inequality and injustice.

White deflection offers a script for how social justice rhetoric and the emotions of victimization are appropriated to conjure a hegemonic White identity. Using derivative language, deflection claims Whiteness as the aggrieved social status. Through case studies of cultural moments and archives including Twitter, country music, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more, Deflective Whiteness exposes the various forms of tacit White supremacy that operate under the alibi of injury and that ultimately serve to deepen racial inequities. By understanding how, where, and why White deflection is used, Noel argues, scholars and social justice advocates can trace, tag, and deconstruct covert White supremacy at its rhetorical foundations.

Author: Hannah Noel
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Published: 11/14/2022
Pages: 226
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d
ISBN13: 9780814215180
ISBN10: 0814215181
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Race & Ethnic Relations
- Language Arts & Disciplines | Rhetoric
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | General

About the Author
Hannah Noel is an Associate Professor at a public liberal arts college in New England. Her articles have appeared in Diálogo, Kalfou, and The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Media.

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