by Brian FoulksRhetoric Race and Religion Contributor There appears to be a consistent narrative associated with young black males-criminal minded. You can spin that in many different directions with many different outcomes but the end result is relatively the same. Young blacks males are catching hell (some warranted as well as stereotypical) in our ever changing world. Let me first acknowledge that this is not some outdated, outcry for racial injustice. This is not a plea for the frivolous but... Read more

by Paul Harvey and Edward J. Blum In May, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright appeared resurrected from the ashes of the 2008 campaign. There was an uproar after The New York Times broke the story that a super PAC had proposed commercials associating President Obama with controversial comments made by his former pastor. Mitt Romney asked for the ads not to run, Karl Rove pronounced the plan stupid, and the advertising campaign’s funder, Joe Ricketts, publicly rejected the plan. The proposed... Read more

by Kimberly Peeler-RingerRhetoric Race and Religion ContributorGay marriage has become quite the hot button issue now that President Barack Obama has taken a definitive stand on the matter. You would have to have lived under a rock these past few weeks in order to have missed pundit after pundit, preacher after preacher, Facebook fight after Facebook fight on the subject of gay marriage. It would appear that this issue of gay marriage…and whether or not it should be extended to... Read more

By Ebony UtleyRhetoric Race and Religion Contributorfrom: Rap and Religion Ms. Lauryn Hill’s birthday was on May 25, 2012. It was an opportunity for the blogosphere to resurrect her memory and mourn the absence of one of hip hop’s greatest stars. Only Ms. Hill is alive and well. I imagine she celebrated her 37th birthday with family and friends. It’s her career that has been laid to rest, but she seems to prefer it that way. When I first heard... Read more

by Andre E. JohnsonEditor: Rhetoric Race and ReligionHere is a paper I wrote for the Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric in a special issue of Religion and Politics. Special thanks to editor Brett Lunceford. Abstract:While scholarship of presidential rhetoric fill the landscape of rhetorical criticism, only recently has schol-ars given much attention to the use of religious rhetoric in presidential discourse. Moreover, while this scholarship is growing, scholars have not paid much attention to the National Prayer Breakfast. In this essay, I examine... Read more

by Laura Todd, MTS StudentRhetoric of Race Class-Summer 2012 part of the Rhetoric Race and Religion Institute*Special Rhetoric Race and Religion My life has been shaped by my race in many ways but this is something I did not realize until I became older. My emotions, feeling, and thoughts about race have been shaped by my family, friends, church, school, and work environments. For example, I grew up in a small area in West Tennessee that was majority White with... Read more

Evangelical Christians cast a large and consistent share of America’s vote. Despite the common wisdom among conservatives, white Evangelicals — the group specifically measured by exit pollsters for the last two presidential elections — actually turned out in slightly larger numbers in 2008 (26 percent of the electorate) than they did in 2004. In both years, they gave Republicans roughly three-quarters of their votes. So John McCain’s loss to Barack Obama four years ago was not due to disaffected Evangelicals... Read more

What are we to think, now that a Mormon has clinched the presidential nomination of one of America’s two major parties? The respectable Victorian men who ruled America’s politics during the 1912 election would have been stricken with chills at the thought of a presidential election a century hence pitting a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against an African American. So looked at in one way, the 2012 election – like the 2008 – signals... Read more

by Crystal LewisRhetoric Race and ReligionFrom: Crystal St. Marie Lewis I was on Twitter today when someone with whom I have regular interaction sent a link to me along with the following question: “How would a Christian like you respond to a story like this? [Link Here]“ He was talking about the ten-year-old story of Nigerian Pastor Daniel Ekechuk, a man who is widely reported on the Internet to have been miraculously resurrected three days after being certified dead by... Read more

by Ebony UtleyRhetoric Race and Religion ContributorFrom: Rap and Religion I dig LeCrae. Tall, dark, handsome… but I digress. I mean, I like his flow, his southern accent, his swag. He has an uncanny ability to assume the personas of an array of protagonists. His videos take audiences back to the community. He’s honest, clever, and consistent in his message without being preachy or too judgmental. I appreciate him calling out the church on its hypocrisy in “Church Clothes.” Through... Read more