Beyond the illusion of inclusion: A new vision for cannabis social equity
This work is a reflexive thematic analysis of race and gender on High Times Magazine covers from 1974-2019. The study analyzed the images on 500 covers of High Times, encoding them for race, gender, and profession, which revealed patterns of tropes. The study finds that the commodification of Blackness alongside the sexualization and objectification of women is utilized to promote a White fantasy, decriminalize cannabis for white purposes and appropriate Black culture to sell magazines. Black representations are often found to be tokenized and represented as Rappers and Rastas. Women of color are largely absent and White women are ornamental and servants of White male heteronormative sexual fantasy. Rastafarian culture and religion are appropriated without context. Contemporary women of color in cannabis remain off of the covers while White women are beginning to appear in more rounded out images. Black criminalization dating back to the War on Drugs continues to influence the covers of the magazine despite the opening of the industry and the utilization of people of color for marketability. However, equitable or meaningful representation of Black men and women on the covers of High Times remains absent.
Social equity, cannabis, race, race representation, diversity, racism, high times, gender, gender representation, reflexive thematic analysis
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign