Masculinities, Post-Racialism and the Gates Controversy: The False Equivalence Between Officer and Civilian

The “Beer Summit” and What's Brewing: Narratives, Networks, and Metaphors as Rhetorical Confinement in the Age of Obama

“…Additionally, this interpretation of the Beer Summit from the important, yet narrow, lens of race has limits. This particular discourse begs other perspectives, such as interpretations on norms of masculinity (Cooper, 2010). Class, although analyzed tangentially here, is another interpretive frame that would help scholars and others to understand communicative complexities in the postracialism era of Obama.…”

Policy, Practicalities, and PACE s. 24: The Subsuming of the Necessity Criteria in Arrest Decision Making by Frontline Police Officers

“…80 This phenomenon occurs where officers arrest not because of the nature of the suspected offence but because the individual has challenged their authority. 81 As Black summarized,`Unquestionably, the suspect who refuses to defer to police authority takes a gamble with his freedom.' 82 Challenging or humiliating an officer who had stopped a suspect was particularly likely to result in arrest where it took place in front of other members of the public, 83 and officers in the current research both talked about the impact of contempt of cop (although this was not a phrase they used) and were observed taking this into account when making arrest decisions.…”

From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin

“…Moreover, the fact that Blacks in town had heard the rumor made it such that Bryant “needed,” in the eyes of many White men and particularly in the eyes of his cousin Milam, to avenge the insult to his honor, along with his wife’s honor (Cooper 2009, 2010; Onwuachi-Willig 2017; Whitfield 1988). Again, as Multidimensional Masculinities Theory suggests, Bryant must have felt the need to dominate contrast figures—here, Till and other Black males—in order to remind all Blacks of their subordinated position; to communicate to Blacks what he viewed as his and other Whites’ racial superiority; to reinforce the understanding that White women belonged to White men and that Black men could not have White women; to make it clear to not just Till, but all other men, that Carolyn Bryant belonged to him; and to show other White men that he, like Milam, could keep Blacks in their proper place (Onwuachi-Willig 2017; Whitfield 1988).…”

“…Just like Milam and Bryant whose working poor class status placed them in “penalty status,” “the condition of already having something about [their] identity that makes [their] masculinity suspect,” Zimmerman, too, was in penalty status at the Retreat at Twin Lakes because of his status as a renter and as someone who was part-Latino because the Retreat at Twin Lakes community had become increasingly hostile to the increasing numbers of renters and people of color in the community (Cooper 2010, p. 22; Onwuachi-Willig 2017). In a period of rapidly declining home values and rising crime rates, White residents in the neighborhood began to see people of color, especially Black men and boys, and renters as the source of the problem, even though only two of the neighborhood’s reported 44 burglaries, attempted break-ins, and suspected break-ins were confirmed to have involved either Black men or boys (Bloom 2014; Onwuachi-Willig 2017).…”