Symbols and Ownership
Fabricating Authenticity - Jason W.M. Ellsworth
Yasmine Flodin-Ali [+]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Yasmine Flodin-Ali obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School. She has a background in interfaith and educational equity work and has worked for non-profits such as the Pluralism Project and College Possible. Yasmine is currently an Islamic Studies PhD student in the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the history of race and religion as modern categories of difference by examining the racialization of South Asian American Muslims and African American Muslims from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
Description
Building on Sheedy’s argument, Flodin-Ali outlines how media responses to acts of violence, strategically employ rhetoric of the “individual” to downplay and isolate white men as mentally ill lone-wolves disconnected from the larger group, while people of color are often represented as collective entities that threaten white America. Flodin-Ali demonstrates that from the standpoint of those with power, the creation of more equitable playing fields can feel like a loss of power and argues that the use of victimization narratives works to authorize the group’s socio-political agenda.