Rhetoric, Racist Ideology, and Intellectual Leadership

Rhetoric, Racist Ideology, and Intellectual Leadership Carrie Crenshaw and David R. Roskos-Ewoldsen Despite gains in the struggle for civil rights in the late twentieth century, racism still ravages individual lives and causes savage societal inequities.1 Stuart Hall has argued that racism is entrenched in our culture because it is "one of the most profoundly 'naturalised' of existing ideologies."2 Because racist ideology is produced and reproduced through discourse, investigation of the rhetorical dimensions of racism is essential to anti-racism.3 Language is the medium of a racist ideology, and racist rhetoric is an important vehicle for the reproduction of most other racist practices.4 While there are many kinds of racism(s), the rhetoric of academic intellectuals can play an important role in the preformulation and legitimation of racist ideologies by preparing prejudiced arguments that inspire, motivate and disseminate popular forms of racism.5 The influence of academic intellectuals is tremendous because scholars are culturally situated as the producers, managers, or brokers of knowledge who supply support for popular forms of racism and the racist claims of other elites.6 Van Dijk argues that "if knowledge is power, then knowledge of other people may be an instrument of power over other people. This truism is especially relevant in examining the academic discourse of race and ethnicity"7 and its impact on public policy discourse. In this essay, we explore the contemporary role of traditional intellectual rhetoric in promoting consent to racist ideology. Understanding how this discourse "works" to sustain racism in the face of challenges to it helps us to grasp the configuration of civil rights in the postmodern era. Drawing upon the insights of Antonio Gramsci's study of hegemonic ideologies, we argue that "moral and intellectual leadership" attempts to sustain consent to racist ideology through specific forms of racist intellectual rhetoric. While many scholars have studied racism and white privilege ,8 examined the social and cultural construction of "race,"9 and advanced our understanding of the rhetorical dimensions of racism,10 this study explores the speCarrie Crenshaw is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. David R. Roskos-Ewoldsen is the Reese Phifer Professor of Communication Studies and an Associative Professor of Psychology at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He also serves as coeditor of the journal Media Psychology. © Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 2, No. 2,1999, pp. 275-302 ISSN 1094-8392 276 Rhetoric & Public Affairs cific question: What are the characteristics and strategies of an intellectual rhetoric designed to promote hegemonic consent to a racist ideology? In answering this question, we enter an on-going conversation about the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's theory for understanding democratic struggle and its impact upon the rhetorical and material construction of civil rights in our society. We offer an analysis of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life,11 a widely disseminated book authored by two academic intellectuals that had a decided impact on broader discussions of welfare, affirmative action, and other public policies.12 While others have directly refuted The Bell Curve's claims, we examine it as an example of traditional intellectuals' rhetoric that operates as a vehicle of moral and intellectual leadership and seek to understand how it "works" to justify and promote public cooperation with coercive racism and to condone white privilege. Moreover, the extensive responses to the Bell Curve demonstrate its importance as a useful example of traditional racist intellectual rhetoric in defense of itself. It is clear from the text that the book's authors anticipated such a firestorm of criticism. Thus, we believe that understanding The Bell Curve's specific rhetorical strategies can help us to understand the rhetorical strategies that traditional intellectuals generally employ in defense of a racist ideology when that hegemonic ideology is contested. We first discuss our theoretical starting point for this study and then offer an analysis of the primary characteristics of The Bell Curve's claims. Through a critical discussion of its rhetorical strategies, we show how the authors exemplify racist intellectual argument in defense of itself. We conclude by highlighting the contributions of this study to a rhetorical theory of the...