EMERGENT AND RESIDUAL ELEMENTS IN U.S. WHITE SUPREMACY Professor Christopher Newfield ISRF Director of Research
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y first approach to this topic was an analysis of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020.1 Police killings of civilians, above all of Black Americans, are a despicable, familiar feature of U.S. history. Yet rather than generating disgusted resignation, Floyd’s killing produced the most extensive mass demonstrations in the history of the United States.2 The demonstrations—uprisings is a better word—were driven by a complex of feelings that varyingly mixed rage, disgust, disbelief, solidarity, hope, criticality, and a determination to make fundamental change. Some commentators on Raymond Williams’ term structure of feeling have noted that the word structure doesn’t capture the fluidity of affective mixtures. But it does get at the systemic nature and constitutive power of affects of the kinds mobilized in 2020’s Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. This second essay was also inspired by reading materials and attending a meeting of a research group convened by Louise Braddock. The work of Braddock and her colleagues encouraged me to press further on the question, does Williams’ term reveal hidden or surprising aspects of this racial history and mass outrage? I think so. I’ll use it to address two burning issues with BLM and other social movements. First, what is new or emergent in a sudden mobilization that looks ahead, and what is a minor shift in the dominant? Second, what prevents the emergent from displacing the dominant formation to which it claims to be an alternative? 1. See Christopher Newfield, “How Do We Stop Calling the Police?”, at https://www.isrf.org/2020/08/03/how-do-we-stop-calling-the-police/. 2. See www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/06/floyd-protestsare-broadest-us-history-are-spreading-white-small-town-america/. 47
