Aesthetics Discussion Group: Sherri Irvin (Oklahoma)

The tools of aesthetics can help us to analyze how we attend to representations and incorporate them into narratives. In recent years, I’ve become increasingly interested in using these tools to understand injustice and pursue justice.

In the first few years after the 2013 founding of the Black Lives Matter movement, videos of racialized police violence circulated widely and raised the profile of Black, Latina/-o/-x and Indigenous communities’ longstanding concerns. However, consequences for the officers who committed acts of violence clearly caught on video were scant. I offer an aesthetic analysis of the cultural training whereby non-expert audiences are taught by authority figures how to interpret these videos and incorporate them into hegemonic narratives designed to exonerate the officers.

I then turn to the current situation. A much larger segment of the white population now acknowledges that racialized police violence is a problem, and individual officers are more likely to face consequences. A large international movement recognized the injustice attending the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the failure to charge the killers of Ahmaud Arbery, and some cities have moved to reduce police funding and change the scope of police activity. However, at the time of this writing the momentum of the movement has slowed and the prospects for deep change are dubious. I will offer an aesthetic analysis of the resistance to hegemonic narratives that lays the groundwork for change, and the processes by which hegemonic narratives reestablish themselves in the public consciousness.The tools of aesthetics can help us to analyze how we attend to representations and incorporate them into narratives. In recent years, I’ve become increasingly interested in using these tools to understand injustice and pursue justice.