Negotiating strategies in New Orleans’s memory-work: white fragility in the politics of removing four Confederate-inspired monuments

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the controversy surrounding the removal of four Confederate-inspired monuments in New Orleans through the narratives of key figures and organizations. We show how pro- and anti-monument supporters employed particular tactics that informed strategies on a continuum, from indirect to direct, to deny and to address white supremacy in the landscape and beyond. These strategies differed in their degree of deference to whiteness, deference that reveals how white fragility is interwoven into the politics of social justice and equity in the memorial landscape.