IUPUI diversity researcher to co-edit special journal issue focusing on Black Lives Matter: Newscenter: Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

Science & Research

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEINDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis diversity researcher will co-edit a special edition of a journal that will examine through multiple disciplines the Black Lives Matter movement.
Among the project's goals, said Leslie Ashburn-Nardo, an associate professor of psychology in the School of Science, is to collect a volume of interdisciplinary manuscripts that seeks to:
Understand the reasons for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Deconstruct the resistance to it.
Identify strategies for effecting positive change that demonstrates the valuing of black lives.
Ashburn-Nardo will edit the special issue of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: An International Journal with Kecia Thomas, a psychology professor and founding director of the Center for Research and Engagement in Diversity at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia.
"People are sharply divided in their opinions of the Black Lives Matter movement," Ashburn-Nardo said. "We think that is because it is something that is poorly understood.
"When they hear 'black lives matter,' a lot of people think that means at the exclusion of other lives. There seems to be a misunderstanding that by saying 'black lives matter' it implies that maybe white lives don't matter -- or blue lives, given that a lot of attention regarding the movement has centered around police interactions with African Americans, " she said.
"I don't think anyone in that movement feels that other lives don't matter, but that seems to be how a lot of folks are interpreting it and have a lot of strong emotional reaction to it," she said. "We are hoping this special issue can shed some light on that."
In a call for papers for the special journal edition, Ashburn-Nardo and Thomas write: "The Black Lives Matter movement came out of the Black community's chronic experience with overt and covert racism and its collective frustration with being silenced when ...

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