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Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple of America: A Minor Rhetoric of Black Nationalism
- Rhetoric & Public Affairs
- Michigan State University Press
- Volume 16, Number 4, Winter 2013
- pp. 685-717
- 10.1353/rap.2013.0044
- Article
- Additional Information
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This essay addresses the rhetorical constitution of identity. Analyzing the rhetoric of Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple of America, I suggest these discourses rhetorically transformed black Americans’ identity to a people resignified as a unique racial and religious community—Moorish Americans. My analysis extends the concept of “minor rhetoric” by illustrating how resistant identities can be constituted. The analysis posits Ali’s discourse as a minor rhetoric of black nationalism capable of stuttering the language of the larger white culture as well as other protest rhetorics.