3116 - Racial Degradation Ceremonies in Everyday Life

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Description

In 1956, Harold Garfinkel published a classic sociological article titled “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies,” placing such ceremonies within the scope of what he called the sociology of moral indignation, where the “ritual destruction of a person being denounced . . . is intended literally.” This panel explores racial domination in its ceremonial form using the notion of “racial degradation ceremonies” in particular.
Panelists will discuss racial degradation ceremonies as performative and ceremonial encounters that allow whites to dramatize the marginalized standings of blacks by performing acts of humiliation and even, violence. Presenters will examine these ceremonies in an array of social institutions like policing, criminal courts, schools, welfare offices and immigration. Collectively, these numerous empirical settings show how racial degradation as a social performances allows whites to perform the moral indignation associated with modern racism and do so for the consumption and pleasure of other whites in a type of political theater.

Description

In 1956, Harold Garfinkel published a classic sociological article titled “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies,” placing such ceremonies within the scope of what he called the sociology of moral indignation, where the “ritual destruction of a person being denounced . . . is intended literally.” This panel explores racial domination in its ceremonial form using the notion of “racial degradation ceremonies” in particular.
Panelists will discuss racial degradation ceremonies as performative and ceremonial encounters that allow whites to dramatize the marginalized standings of blacks by performing acts of humiliation and even, violence. Presenters will examine these ceremonies in an array of social institutions like policing, criminal courts, schools, welfare offices and immigration. Collectively, these numerous empirical settings show how racial degradation as a social performances allows whites to perform the moral indignation associated with modern racism and do so for the consumption and pleasure of other whites in a type of political theater.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, University of Delaware

Presider

• Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, University of Delaware

Individual Presentations

• Blue and White Supremacy: Situating the Symbolism of the Blue Lives Matter Movement - Jamie G. Longazel, City University of New York-John Jay College

• The Everyday Degradation of Black Mothers - Dorothy E. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania

• Racial Degradation under the Law: A Comparative Look at Police, Courts and Jails - Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, University of Delaware

• Reenacting Historical Memory: The Historical Links to Modern Racial Degradation - Geoff Ward, University of California-Irvine