Aspects of African American Rhetoric as a Field [2004]

To encapsulate all the various efforts in the scholarly study of African American rhetoric would be a task virtually as daunting as if the object were to summarize all reportage and analysis of the Black experience overall. Voluminous attention has been devoted to Black discourses because such discourses have been the major means by which people of African descent in the American colonies and subsequent republic have asserted their collective humanity in the face of an enduring White supremacy and tried to persuade, cajole, and gain acceptance for ideas relative to Black survival and Black liberation. So immediately one recognizes the impracticality of trying to write definitively about such a vast network of activities in such limited space. What I attempt, therefore, is a meaningful historical sketch of a particular body of rhetorical scholarship, a choice that necessarily implies certain critical sacrifices. For example, I will forgo formal discussion of linguistics and the creative arts although I remain in possession of impressive arguments why such truncation of rhetorical inquiry should not be carried too far. The very existence of African American Vernacular English inscribes a significant rhetorical situation, and the prevailing functional character of African American artistic expression renders problematic any move to divorce its production and any criticism thereof from the realm of rhetorical inquiry. Nonetheless, I maintain that it is useful, in order to actually get through one essay, to focus on what there is to say about Black persuasive or associative verbal practices beyond the specific linguistic items of AAVE, or Standard English for that matter, or on what is left to say of public discourse if one agrees to bracket texts that are literary or musical. What is left to say of strategy and method? The answer comprises the terrain that this essay explores. The focus is on what scholars working taxonomically and employing rhetorical perspectives ranging from Aristotelian principles to Afrocentric conceptions have made of oratory by those of African descent in the United States. Of course, this approach also ignores what normally would be regarded as interpersonal communication. I am aware, too, how ultimately indefensible that decision is in the long run given that even one-on-one verbal interaction designed to elicit cooperation is surely rhetoric as well. However, some of the collections I mention, such as Language, Communication, and Rhetoric in Black America (Asante, 1972) do include such work that extends beyond the scope of this project. In addition, I recommend Thomas Kochman's Rappin' and Stylin' Out (1972) and Michael Hecht, Mary Jane Collier, a n d Sidney A . Ribeau's African American Communication (1993).