Hate and Heritage
In the spring of 2015, actor Ben Affleck appeared on PBS’s Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates. In preparation for the show, which traces the genealogies of famous Americans, Affleck requested that information about his family’s ownership of black slaves be omitted from the broadcast, though details about Affleck’s more noble ancestors, including his mother, who was a Freedom Rider, were highlighted. When the omission was publically revealed, Affleck admitted that he was “embarrassed” by ancestors who owned slaves. “The very thought left a bad taste in my mouth,” he shared on Facebook.
Affleck’s unwillingness to publicly admit to a family history of racism mirrors a broader cultural reluctance to address the close ties between heritage—both personal and national—and hate. Family genealogies are only one area where such relationships are erased or ignored. Geography is marked and marred by acts of hate, acts commemorated, memorialized, celebrated, condemned, mourned, hidden, and ignored by various populations across time. Sacred spaces and sacred time are dedicated to hate events, then erased and rededicated. Official and unofficial histories make and remake the meaning of such events, and popular culture interprets and reinterprets them. We invent rituals to engage us with our hateful pasts, and we also craft narratives that distance us from it. Among extremists, hateful heritage is a source of pride, while among others, it is a source of guilt, humiliation, trauma, and defensiveness. In sum, hate events are never settled but are instead a source of constant conflict as they resonate across generations, informing the contemporary moment in ways frequently unseen, especially by those in power, and misunderstood, often strategically.
The Journal of Hate Studies seeks submissions of manuscripts examining the relationships between hate and heritage. Potential topics include:
- Hate in heritage studies as an academic field
- Teaching histories of hate, especially to historically victimized populations or to populations that have historically victimized others
- Memorialization and commemoration of victims of hate
- Sacralization of spaces of hate
- Popular reinterpretation of hate in film, theater, art, and music
- Leisure, tourism, and travel and hate
- Hate and the decorative arts and handcrafts
- Hate and ethnic identity
- Hate in family history and genealogy
- Historical interpretation and reinterpretation of hate events
- The commodification and commercialization of hate
- Hate in history as framed by members of hate groups
Posted: November 29, 2015, 10:07 PM