| Description |
This thesis is about function of racist discourse and ideology, and its effects on bodies, past to present. In particular, it undertakes a critical interrogation of the rhetoric of President Donald J. Trump, which has exacerbated racial tensions and further authorized White supremacist ideology. It advances a rhetorical analysis of language and ideology, centering how racism is rooted in a series of ideas networked and strengthened over space and time. Trump is a rhetor whose language preserves the dominance of the hegemonic family, but any critical rhetorical analysis would fail by design if it centered him solely as the problem. The central argument here, indeed, is that racist rhetoric has fundamentally been approached as a product of a particular time or individual. This project attempts to develop a response to such thinking by 1) connecting a logic of coloniality (management and control of knowledge) to an "American" identity imbued with narratives of freedom, equality, and progress, 2) illuminating how racist discourse branded "other" to non-white bodies, and 3) and by situating Trump's discourse as discursive practice precipitated by the constellation of social, cultural, and political consequences that have shaped the history of the U.S. I draw upon a range of analyses to investigate each, with the central goal being to consider the role of rhetoric as a means of intervention and invention. By analyzing and revealing instances of social inequality as it manifests through language and ideology, racist narratives can be located, identified, and named, providing the opportunity to amend and dismantle them. |
