A critical discourse analysis of racial violence in South Carolina, U.S.A.: implications for traveling while Black

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to present a rich, detailed case that illustrates the way in which the discourse of racial violence has been constructed in the United States (U.S.), and how that has impacted Black travel. Using South Carolina, a state centrally-located along the East coast with historic, political, and social ties to the U.S. South as the context for this analysis, this paper employs a critical discourse analysis to examine the intersection of racial violence and tourism, situating cases of violence – historic to the modern. This study makes a case for more focused attention on the intersection of tourism and violence within the literature, as well as a call to the tourism industry to be proactive to discourses of violence, demonstrate a desire for diversity in their visitors, consider the critical issues of racial representation in their tourism products, and be aware of the emerging organizations supporting and facilitating Black travel.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• violence
• critical discourse analysis
• Black tourists
• South Carolina

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. African Americans, Black Americans and Black(s) will be used interchangeably. These terms refer to American citizens of African descent but in differing ways that citizenship has been achieved. Black Americans is an older, more encompassing term for African Americans, and immigrants from the continent of Africa, the Caribbean, and include other locations through the African diaspora whereas African Americans represents descendants of the enslaved that cannot identify their country or region of ancestry. Black, then, is a political identity that acknowledges an understanding of a shared experience of injustice as a result of skin color. Extending this further, Race, capitalized, is used to represent a racial system (see Wachal, 2000).

2. As one example, on January 27, 2017, U.S. President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Order, Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, better known as the ‘Muslim Travel Ban’. Though the original order was rescinded, several revised travel bans have been put forth with the latest version being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Central to this discussion is the role of religious decimation where the seven countries originally identified in the order were majority Muslim countries (Liptack, 2018).

3. Jim Crow refers to state and local legislature that enforced racial segregation in public spaces such as schools, recreation facilities, and transit. (Woodward, 1955).

4. A study by the SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism and Economic Development (2016) also found that fear and racial discrimination remain a barrier to Black tourists within South Carolina

5. The U.S. South is one of five main regions in the country and includes the following states: Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

6. Lynchings across the south included: North Carolina –102; Kentucky –142; South Carolina – 56; Tennessee –204; Florida –257; Arkansas –226 (with another 237 killed in a mass lynching); Alabama -299; Louisiana –335; Texas –352; Georgia –531; and Mississippi –575.

7. While some members of the state legislature moved in January 1962 to have it removed, a resolution passed in March 1962 for the flag to stay indefinitely. In 2000, a legislative vote moved the flag from the capitol’s dome to a Confederate monument in front of the Statehouse.

8. The NCAA initially placed a two-year moratorium on hosting events in the South Carolina in 2001 and in 2004 expanded the ban when the state had not made any significant change on the display of the Confederate flag (NCAA, 2004).

9. Jeff Sessions has also been quoted saying that a white lawyer who represented black clients was ‘a disgrace to his race,’ called the ACLU ‘un-American’ and ‘forced civil rights down the throats of people,’ and stated that the Voting Rights Act was an intrusive piece of legislation (Chang, 2016).

10. Language used in the Contract with the American Voter includes, ‘Begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won't take them back …  fully fund the construction of a wall on our southern border  … Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur.’

11. The response failed to condemn the armed protestors who were believed to be motivated by racism. The next day, the President provided a more direct statement against the White supremacy groups but later returned to his original position. Over the course of multiple press conferences, interviews, and rallies he continued to charge that the unarmed anti-protestors were to equally blame for the violence and refused to denounce the actions of the White supremacy groups. The former Imperial Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, posted via Twitter: ‘Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa’ and Richard Spencer, wrote on Twitter: ‘Trump has never denounced the Alt-Right. Nor will he.’ (Cummings, 2017).

12. The three-fifths clause was an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This clause was used to determine the number of seats Southern states would have in the House of Representatives. It was agreed between the Northern and Southern states that slaves would be considered three-fifths of a person for the purpose of state representation. (U.S. Const. art. I, § 2).

13. Two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. The incident culminated because the pair had not made a purchase because they were waiting for another person to join a real estate appointment. It is suggested that racial bias may have led to an unjust call to the local police as other White patrons had also not ordered (Held, 2018).