Spectacular whiteness: The tactics and mediation of white protests for Black Lives

Abstract

This article critically examines the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings in Portland, Oregon, focusing on the strategic and rhetorical deployment of whiteness in support of Black lives in the protest space. It observes that whiteness, as mediated through various news and journalistic texts, assumes a privileged position in this moment as spectacular, exploring the consequences of leveraging whites’ exceptional status in support of Black lives. The analysis focuses on two emblematic case studies: Christopher David, a white Navy veteran beaten by federal troops and ‘Naked Athena’, a white-presenting woman who posed nude in front of advancing police. Each is analyzed to understand how the protesters’ actions reveal a heuristic of spectacular whiteness for understanding the significance of Portland-based protests for Black lives. Analysis of media representations of each case reveals the ways whiteness inappropriately informed how the protests were narrativized.

Keywords

Black Lives Matter whiteness Portland spectacle media representation

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