Federal grant helps prof determine which landmarks are racist
One University of Oregon professor is researching more than 2,600 different landmarks across the U.S. and “the degree to which white supremacy and racial injustice is acknowledged.”
Her initial data “confirms” that racism is “deeply ingrained in American historical commemoration and cultural memory.”
A professor at the University of Oregon is researching more than 2,600 different landmarks across the U.S. and “the degree to which white supremacy and racial injustice is acknowledged.” According to the school’s website, professor Laura Pulido’s initial data “confirms that racism is deeply ingrained in American historical commemoration and cultural memory.”
The National Science Foundation awarded Pulido a $350,000 grant to pursue this research project. It comes amid a movement of historical monuments across the country being vandalized and removed following protests and riots in the wake of police-involved deaths.
[RELATED: U Oregon students demand removal of pioneer statue]
Pulido argues, however, that “dismantling such structures is an important, but insufficient, step toward achieving racial justice.”
“Historical sites are key to this systemic denial, as they denote places and events deemed worthy of remembrance,” Pulido said in a statement on the school’s website.
[RELATED: University of Oregon takes drastic action to shore up coronavirus revenue losses]
The school states on its website that “no acknowledgment is found of white supremacy or the racial processes involved in the site” and further claimed that this “amounts to an erasure of the racial violence and injustice integral to the roots of the country.”
Until that is rectified, the university added, the United States is “normalizing white supremacy and racism.”
Campus Reform reached out to the University of Oregon and Pulido for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @JezzamineWolk
