Enslavement, Conflict, and Collective (Re)Memory: The 1619 (Digital Discourse) Project as Research, Remedy, and Repair

• In Event: Critical Discourse in Media: Impacts on Learning and Cultural Politics

Abstract

Just educational renewal requires reparative public education that does not flinch away from the past. In the five years since The 1619 Project’s initial publication in the New York Times, we have seen numerous attempts to thwart collective cultural (re)memory-making about enslavement, even as several states ban the teaching of the Project, AP African American History, and other courses that teach about our nation's racial past. In this paper, we discuss our investigation of the discourses of enslavement and its afterlife in the digital world. Using discourse analysis supplemented by data modeling, we examine digital discourse and social media posts including TikToks and Instagram posts composed in response to three 1619 Project.

Author

• Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, University of Michigan