ABSTRACT

Public memory serves as a foundation for national identity, so struggles to balance respect for difference with the need for common ground emerge repeatedly in struggles over how to remember the public past. Cultural pluralism and multiculturalism tend to articulate a politics of difference in which inequities are identified but common ground proves elusive. Yet, documentaries by African American filmmakers commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots suggest ways of narrating the public past on fairer terms that accept difference while recognizing mutuality. Produced by the dominant white culture, LA92 uses an omniscient perspective and simple characterizations to label and denounce incompetence and villainy, suggesting a form of cultural pluralism in which identity groups live side by side, barely tolerating their inherent differences. In contrast, LA Burning and Let It Fall, films grounded in African American cultural traditions of intersectionality and double consciousness, address the tensions of cultural pluralism by integrating diverse perspectives without marginalizing any of them. Rather than distinguishing good from bad people, they distinguish just from unjust social relationships, establishing the possibility of multicultural public memory.

摘要

公共记忆是国家认同的基础，因此在如何记住公共过去的斗争中反复出现在尊重差异与需要共同点之间取得平衡。文化多元主义和多元文化主义倾向于表达一种差异政治，在这种政治中，不平等被识别出来，但共同点被证明是难以捉摸的。然而，纪念 1992 年洛杉矶骚乱 25 周年的非裔美国电影制片人的纪录片提出了以更公平的方式讲述公众过去的方式，这些方式接受差异，同时承认相互性。由占主导地位的白人文化生产，LA92用无所不知的视角和简单的描述来标记和谴责无能和邪恶，暗示了一种文化多元化的形式，身份群体并存，几乎不能容忍他们固有的差异。相比之下，LA Burning和Let It Fall以非洲裔美国人的交叉性和双重意识文化传统为基础，通过整合不同观点而不边缘化任何观点来解决文化多元化的紧张局势。他们不是区分好人和坏人，而是仅仅区分不公正的社会关系，从而建立了多元文化公共记忆的可能性。