Freedom of speech versus racial justice: Homeplace theory, antiparallelism, and becoming-minor

Abstract

This article examines the reasons that Whiteness and social justice have adopted conceptions of democracy and freedom that seem to conflict and yet do not directly conflict. The argument starts by framing a problem of democracy and freedom as property issued to White people within a dominant majoritarian semiotic system. By using critical race theory and linguistic philosophy, we describe how conflict suppression maintains a homeplace, a social justice semiotic subsystem that suppresses conflict with Whiteness, thereby protecting both the homeplace and Whiteness simultaneously. We argue that public administration theory offers unique opportunities to promote and enrich these sites of resistance to reterritorialize democracy and freedom in new and inclusive ways.

Keywords:

• Becoming-minor
• homeplace theory
• semiotics
• social justice
• Whiteness

Note

Notes

1 We thank an anonymous reviewer for this clarifying insight.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nuri Heckler

Nuri Heckler, School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Ryan Rouse

Ryan Rouse, School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha.