This page provides an overview of what I have been working on most recently! For a full rundown of things I’m working on or engaged in, see my CV on the About page.
Publications
OUT NOW!
Check out my recently published book chapter “Trump Doesn’t Tweet Dog Whistles, He Barks with the Dogs: Crimmigration as a Racial Project through the Lens of Trump’s Twitter” co-authored with Dr. Rashawn Ray (University of Maryland).
In this study, we conducted a content analysis of Trump’s tweets about immigrants and immigration to uncover how they may support “crimmigration” — the convergence of criminal law and immigration procedures — as a racial project that shapes the racial formation of the United States.
We also recently published an updated blog piece on this research in the Border Criminologies blog hosted by the University of Oxford. Check it out here!
COMING SOON!
Stay tuned for my forthcoming book chapter “Black Lives Matter in Polarized News Media: Politics, Policing, Prejudice, and Protest” that will be published in Structural Racism and the Root Causes of Prejudice (University of California Press), edited by Drs. Rashawn Ray and Hoda Mahmoudi (University of Maryland).
In this study, I conducted a content analysis of news articles on the #BlackLivesMatter movement in two news outlets: Slate and TheBlaze. Through this analysis, I discuss the way that politically polarized news outlets draw on similar themes in coverage but deploy contrasting controlling images of activists and police officers in an effort to influence the racial formation of U.S. society.
Scholar Activism
June 15, 2020 — Released an Introductory Guide to #BlackLivesMatter for people who want to better understand the movement and need a starting point! Head over to my Blog page of this website to see my post about the guide and access the link!
June 14, 2020 — Appearance on Episode 3 of the #AnotherHashtag IG TV/Live Series (@another_hashtag) hosted by Jourdan (@lemonsvibe) and Jessica (@jayyymariee). Visit the show’s IG page and engage with us in the comments!
Research in Progress
1. “Black Millennial Perspectives on #BlackLivesMatter” — This interview project centers the perspectives of Black millennials in discussing the Black Lives Matter movement and its place in the history of race in the U.S. I am currently in the data collection and analysis phase. While this study started as a class project, it has grown in magnitude and will now be my dissertation project. I hope to use this data to publish 2-3 journal articles and eventually my first book. I will be presenting my first paper using this data at the 2020 American Sociological Association annual meeting. This particular paper examines how Black millennials conceptualize the Black Lives Matter movement as a racial project. I have also submitted an extended abstract to a Social Movement Studies special issue on “Negotiating The Future In Social Movements” using this data. If accepted, my article would draw on my interviews with Black millennials to examine narratives of success and visions of the future in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.
2. “Desensitization or Moral Shock? The Dilemma of Black Death Imagery During Black Liberation Movements” — In this work, my co-author Shaonta’ Allen (University of Cincinnati) and I examine the role of Black death imagery in eras of Black liberation activism. We specifically examine the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter Movements, and the impact of this imagery in the momentum and success of these movements. This project has been accepted for publication in the edited volume Rights and Lives: Continuities in Black Freedom Struggles (Vanderbilt University Press).
3. “Who Supports #BlackLivesMatter? Looking Beyond Descriptive Data” — This quantitative project uses Pew survey data to examine demographic patterns in levels of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. This study is currently a working paper that I presented at the 2020 Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting and plan to submit for journal publication by the end of 2020.
4. “(Multi)Racial Socialization and its Impact on Identity Development” — This quantitative project uses Pew survey data to examine the relationship between frequency of racial socialization from parents specifically about being mixed-race and the identity development of multiracial Americans. This study is currently a working paper that I plan to submit for journal publication by the end of 2020.
SOCY Simone 