Revolting With Words: Language and Literacy Practices Utilized in Student-Led Racial Protests

• In Event: Roundtable Session 49
  In Roundtable Session: Promoting Social Justice in Black Education

Abstract

Engaging in participant observation, the author uses field notes, data from semi-structured interviews, and physical and digital artifacts from a racial justice oriented, college student organization to explore their efforts in interrupting the ways Black bodies are systemically dehumanized through the tool of protests. More specifically, this paper explores the literacy embedded within the protests initiated by students. It was discovered that the language and literacy of protests results in the ability for students to Search Past Silence, Create Respect Under Conditions of Little to No Respect, and Author themselves Outside of Dominant Discourses.

Author

• Justin Avery Coles, Michigan State University