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<\/a>The Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric<\/a> invited R3 editor Andre E. Johnson<\/a> to guest edit a special issue of the journal titled \u201cUnderstanding the Rhetoric(s) of Race. Below is the introductory essay to the special issue.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nWhen we first invited scholars and sent out a call for papers on a special issue on Understanding the Rhetoric(s) of Race, there had been much in the media in regards to race and racism. We noted that from the discussions that many had regarding the acquittal of George Zimmerman, to the killing of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and others; from the continued protests in Ferguson; to how politicians talk about and use race in deliberation and policy making, race, how it functions, and more importantly, how we communicate it had been at the forefront. At the time many also called for reconciliation and the proverbial \u201cconversations on race.\u201d However, despite our higher aims, race, race-based appeals, and overall racist rhetoric still was plentiful.<\/p>\n
Therefore, with this in mind, we invited submissions for a special issue focusing on the intersection of rhetoric and race. The goal was to offer new insights that would begin to frame future communication studies on race, racism, and racialized discourses. In keeping with the mission of the Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, we sought papers that promoted \u201cpublic intellectualism by providing scholarly analysis of current events.\u201d We believe that essays in this journal \u201cshould add to the public discussion of current events and help the public understand more fully the theoretical underpinnings of public debates and controversies, political discourse, social movements, and media events.\u201d<\/p>\n
Therefore, we were interested in essays that would contribute to our current knowledge of the rhetorics of race, while revealing their historical and cultural significance through detailed case studies of discourse across a wide range of contemporary contexts. In addition, our hope was to demonstrate ways racial knowledge and power becomes possible through rhetorical inquiry. With the following essays, we feel that we achieved our goals<\/p>\n
The first two essays focus on the phrase \u201cBlack Lives Matter.\u201d Critical Race scholars David Leonard<\/a> and Julius Bailey<\/a> suggest that we should see Black Lives Matter as an active movement focused not on the future, \u201cbut with our present moment.\u201d They argue that an understanding of Black Lives Matter would see that it is a movement \u201cprincipally in the here and now\u201d and it is that present availability that continues to move the movement forward. They maintain that by engaging in social media \u201cwith its endless framing and shaping of the immediate present,\u201d not\u00a0only can proponents and supporters of Black Lives Matter continue to grow, but they also can fend off opponents and detractors and expose racist assumptions that have led to the marginalization of people of color. Proponents achieve this by radicalizing Black love, reclaiming Black death, challenging White Privilege and having the audacity of the dream.<\/p>\n In the second essay, communication scholars Catherine L. Langford<\/a> and Monten\u00e9 Speight argue that the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag offers \u201can ideology counter to the historical and contemporary framing of African Americans that strips them of social value.\u201d As a hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter \u201cattempts to alter the epistemic paradigm that exists in American discursive and material actions.\u201d Proponents of #BlackLivesMatter do this by \u201cdrawing attention to the habitual violence against Blacks in America\u201d while at the same time offering positive and redeeming messages about the \u201cindividual and communal worth of Black lives.\u201d Further they maintain that the hashtag teaches auditors that \u201cBlack persons have a positive presence, that violence against the Black body is news, that white privilege exists, and that colorblind rhetoric does not help bring about equality or justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Communication scholar and race theorist Mark Orbe<\/a> in the next essay draws from Critical Race Theory to explicate how \u201cpost-racial fantasies render the legitimacy of race-specific assertions as null and void.\u201d Specifically he argues that the hashtag \u201c#AllLivesMatter is akin with larger rhetorical devices\u2014like the notion of a color-blind society\u2014that are used to promote postracism.\u201d After offering a brief description of Black Lives Matter, Orbe offers a rhetorical critique of #AllLivesMatter and closes the essay by arguing for the necessity of Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n With the \u201choodie\u201d at the forefront of her analysis, in the next essay, Kristen Ann Hungerford <\/a>examines how it and other forms of protest rhetoric advocated \u201cJustice for Trayvon\u201d Through the use of these protest symbols, Hungerford first, \u201cobserves different readings of the rhetorical functions and possibilities of wearing the hoodie, as is evident by black and white protesters\u201d and second, examines how \u201cprotesters identified with Martin and how race, as an identity category, functions in these different forms of rhetoric.\u201d Hungerford argues that while others can support the cause of racial justice by wearing hoodies and other artifacts, this type of protest rhetoric is \u201cmost effective when persons who have lived experiences of marginalization, in this case particularly black men, demonstrate and don symbols of racial injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n The next two essays focus on Barack Obama and race. In the first one, Scott Anderson<\/a> argues that while most scholars credit Obama with an \u201cinclusive rhetorical strategy\u201d when talking about race of raced themed topics, Obama prefers to \u201ccontextualize race paradoxically, thus creating a type of disunity.\u201d Drawing from Michael Mendelson\u2019s use of controversia; the process whereby speakers present both pro and contra reasoning within one complex argument to establish the grounds for deliberation, Anderson further argues that \u201cwhile this strategy contributed to Obama\u2019s success in \u2018A More Perfect Union\u2019 and in the \u2018Trayvon Martin\u2019 speech, news media largely deemed his response to \u2018Michael Brown\u2019 a failure.\u201d Anderson maintains that the success and failure of each speech hinged primarily on the \u201cconstraints surrounding each speaking occasion and its intended audience.\u201d<\/p>\n In the next essay, I examine Obama\u2019s \u201cimpromptu\u201d speech given in the Press Briefing Room in response to the George Zimmerman verdict. I argue that Obama frames the killing of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman as a national tragedy and worthy of commemoration. In short, Obama articulates to the American people the pain that African Americans felt after the verdict and invites all Americans to mourn. Moreover, I argue that by framing black pain at the center of this \u201cAmerican tragedy,\u201d Obama invited all Americans to see \u201cblackness\u201d and its pain as part of the American fabric.<\/p>\n The next two essays examine the intersections of race and health. In the first, religious studies scholar Kendra Hotz<\/a> \u201cexplores the relationship between the discourses of religious belonging and health care among African-American women in Memphis, Tennessee.\u201d Hotz argues that \u201cthe language and practices of biomedical contexts can work at cross purposes with the goal of encouraging good self-care, but that the insights of narrative medicine and womanist theology represent helpful correctives.\u201d Further Hotz argues that an analysis of the language of self care offers a \u201cnew way of construing the relationship between health seeker and health care provider that has the potential to disrupt the unconscious bias among health care providers that leads to disparities in treatment for racial and ethnic minorities.\u201d<\/p>\n In the second essay that examines the intersection of race and health, communication scholars Amber Johnson<\/a> and Kesha Morant Williams<\/a> examine the LifeAlways billboard campaigns and website. They argue that the LifeAlways billboard campaign, while attempting to \u201clessen the number of abortions performed on Black women,\u201d in turn add to \u201cexisting health disparities and impedes any potential progress towards reproductive justice by spreading negative health messages.\u201d They further maintain that LifeAlways health messages aimed at Black women consistently \u201cdeny agency, voice, and health.\u201d In closing, Johnson and Morant Williams offer what they call \u201cpro-health\u201d\u2014a \u201cculturally relevant alternative that engages Black women\u2019s voices, agency, narratives, and health disparities fully.\u201d<\/p>\n Our closing essay, by rhetoric scholar Kimberly P. Johnson<\/a> argues that a womanist perspective could be helpful when discussing race and racism. Ultimately, she argues, \u201ca womanist rhetorician not only serves to liberate women, but all oppressed people of all races, ethnicities, sexualities, and genders.\u201d Further, she adds, \u201cwomanist criticism must analyze the ideology of domination that marginalizes individuals until it is able to construct a rhetorical agency that affirms the humanity of those who are marginalized.\u201d<\/p>\n I would like to thank first, Brett Lunceford<\/a>, editor of the Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric for inviting me to guest edit this issue. I also thank him for having the visionary insight for creating such a journal. Second, I would like to thank the reviewers who took the time to review the essays. You offered good constructive criticism, and while several essays did not make it into this issue, we hope to see some of those published soon in future issues of the journal.<\/p>\n Read the issue here<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Donate to the Work of R3<\/b><\/p>\n