Speech

Session I

Harrison Daley, "A Cross-Examination of James Baldwin & Ta-Nehisi Coates: Investigating American Whiteness, Religion, and Activism" 

The project is founded on unraveling White Christian Nationalism’s role in American society. The study will answer the fundamental question of how whiteness is currently defined and understood in American culture. This research is rooted in a desire to better comprehend the racial relations of America, employing various texts to define the parameters of the work and bolster findings. Specifically, James Baldwin’s and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ non-fiction texts The Fire Next Time and Between the World and Me, along with essays from each writer, will be compared to define American whiteness today and ultimately explain how its identity has been and is parallel, if not the same, as the American identity. Drawing on the insights of whiteness studies, critical race theory, black studies, James Baldwin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the study will seek to exhibit the power of American whiteness and its omission from American cultural rhetoric. The research will elucidate what it means to “believe you are white,” a phrase used alike by Baldwin and Coates, and how the power in the belief of whiteness has and continues to impact American society. 

Student Major(s)/Minor: Economics Major, Accounting Minor

Advisor: Dr. Terrell Taylor