Staging progressive dissensus and the politics of Black silence: Black Lives Matter, Bernie Sanders, and the August 2015 rally in Seattle

In August 2015, Black Lives Matter activists Mara Willaford and Marissa Johnson interrupted a Seattle rally with a four-and-a-half-minute silent commemoration of Black teenager Michael Brown, preventing presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders from speaking. Using a Rancièrean political framewo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCommunication and critical/cultural studies Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 325 - 342
Main Author Dilliplane, Daniel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.07.2023
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Black Lives matter
Cultural studies
dissensus
progressive left
Silence
voice
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN1479-1420
1479-4233
DOI10.1080/14791420.2023.2229412

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Summary:In August 2015, Black Lives Matter activists Mara Willaford and Marissa Johnson interrupted a Seattle rally with a four-and-a-half-minute silent commemoration of Black teenager Michael Brown, preventing presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders from speaking. Using a Rancièrean political framework and a methodology of performance-inflected rhetorical criticism, I explore how this silent protest exemplifies what I call "voiced silence" and transfigures a tradition of tactical Black silence as both repression and resistance. I argue the activists staged a scene of dissensus, fracturing the false consensus of the progressive left's post-racial façade and thereby revealing the presence of two worlds in one.
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ISSN:1479-1420
1479-4233
DOI:10.1080/14791420.2023.2229412