Whether it is through the perspective of Colin Kapernick or Donald Trump, the broader U.S. public continues to be reminded and assured that we are anything but a post-racial society. We are also reminded in local spaces and even in our university classrooms that race still matters. Although the dialogue has shifted from whose lives matter to #timesup to immigration reform, what has remained stable is the set of fantasies about blackness that have been globally exported all over the world. In this keynote lecture, Dr. Ronald L. Jackson II discusses how the stain of racial hegemony continues to mark Black male bodies as bereft of honor, civility, dignity, respectfulness and anything other than that which constitutes what it means to be an honorable American.

Dr. Ronald L. Jackson II is the immediate past president of the National Communication Association, the oldest and largest professional organization in the communication discipline. He is currently professor of communication at the University of Cincinnati, where his research explores empirical, conceptual and critical approaches to the study of masculinity, identity negotiation, Whiteness, and Afrocentricity. He is the author of 14 books, including his most recent book (with Jamel Bell) entitled Interpreting Tyler Perry.