ABSTRACT
The differing potencies of black and white public presentations are a regular cause of communicative conflict. Black presentations are emotionally intense, dynamic, and demonstrative; white presentations are more modest and emotionally restrained. Where whites use the relatively detached and unemotional discussion mode to engage an issue, blacks use the more emotionally intense and involving mode of argument. Where whites tend to understate their exceptional talents and abilities, blacks tend to boast about theirs. Where white men – meeting women for the first time – defuse the potency of their sexual messages by disguising their sexual content, black men make their sexual interest explicit and hope to infuse their presentations with sexual potency through artful, bold, and audacious sexual proposals.
