Human-rights rhetoric can relocate redress authority toward imperial overseers

Evidence

The welcome speech was the ultimate dismissal of me, and of Renty. Harvard had no interest in his story. They rejected it, and instead hired historians to create a narrative about him. I felt the transference of Renty’s trauma course through me like molten lead. He was being objectified all over again, treated like a slave at a conference that was supposed to be addressing and undoing harm. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 619 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Key human rights drafters combined universalist rhetoric with colonial paternalism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 269; Human-rights language served to restrain postcolonial popular sovereignty — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 295; Human rights language was mobilized against demands for postcolonial economic redistribution. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 379 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• Human rights rhetoric masks imperial assumptions that racialize colonized peoples #corroborates (1.00)
• Women’s rights rhetoric is selectively deployed to justify imperial interventions #corroborates (1.00)
• Institutions can simultaneously claim redress and control the narrative about the wronged #exemplifies (1.00) — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 619
• Human rights and democracy discourse replaced older imperial justifications for war #complicates (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 403
• Feminist rhetoric can function as a tool of imperial and nationalist agendas #complicates (0.80)
• Freedom rhetoric can be recast to demand freedom to oppress #complicates (0.70) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 948
• Humanist defenses of native rights legitimized imperial acquisition #complicates (0.70)