ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors consider the most prominent theories of African-American rhetoric that circulate in American colleges and universities. These include the ideas of Molefi Kete Asante, perhaps the field’s foremost theoretician, as evident by his books Rhetoric in Black America; The Afrocentric Idea; and Race, Rhetoric, and Identity. Also addressed are the constructs proffered by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial Self” and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. The chapter also highlights the cluster of ideologies that the authors term black feminism, notions that cohere around four tropes: 1) the self-conscious verbal assertion of requisite black female presence, 2) commentary about the exercise of a black female voice speaking against male domination, 3) the ironic assertion of high-achieving black womanhood, and 4) the positing of triple exploitation. Writings by Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alice Walker are featured in this section of the chapter.
