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Communication Theory Eight: Three August 1998 Pages: 245-270 Marouf Hasian, J. Fernando Delgado The Trials and Tribulations of Racialized Critical Rhetorical Theory: Understanding the Rhetorical Ambiguities of Proposition 187 This essay explores the role that race plays in rhetorical theorizing. Linking the literature in critical race theory (CRT), critical rhetoric, and vernacular criticism, the essay examines the case of Proposition 187 for the ways in which race was deployed and occluded. The essay demonstrates that rhetori- cians can and should systematically assess racial dimensions in communica- tive practices. Such a rhetorical turn emphasizes race as part of historical, legal, political, and cultural discourses. The authors build a case for a racialized critical rhetorical theorizing (RCRT). Fear turns us against our neighbors, and so it begins. Joseph Altick (1994) Within the field of rhetoric, there is perhaps no more volatile subject that the issue of “race” and racial construction. In spite of the clarion calls that theorists need to sensitize themselves to the ideological com- ponents between rhetoric, “text,” and audience (McGee, 1990; McKerrow, 1989; Wander, 1983), we are still in the early stages of theo- rizing about the role that race plays in various rhetorical cultures.’ McPhail (1994) has recently remarked that “there has been scant dis- cussion of race and rhetoric which incorporates contemporary perspec- tives” (p. 8). Even when critics have looked at race, there is a tendency Copyright 0 1998 International Communication Association 245
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Page 1: The Trials and Tribulations of Racialized Critical Rhetorical Theory: Understanding the Rhetorical Ambiguities of Proposition 187

Communication Theory

Eight: Three

August 1998

Pages: 245-270

Marouf Hasian, J . Fernando Delgado

The Trials and Tribulations of Racialized Critical Rhetorical Theory: Understanding the Rhetorical Ambiguities of Proposition 187

This essay explores the role that race plays in rhetorical theorizing. Linking the literature in critical race theory (CRT), critical rhetoric, and vernacular criticism, the essay examines the case of Proposition 187 for the ways in which race was deployed and occluded. The essay demonstrates that rhetori- cians can and should systematically assess racial dimensions in communica- tive practices. Such a rhetorical turn emphasizes race as part of historical, legal, political, and cultural discourses. The authors build a case for a racialized critical rhetorical theorizing (RCRT).

Fear turns us against our neighbors, and so it begins. Joseph Altick (1994)

Within the field of rhetoric, there is perhaps no more volatile subject that the issue of “race” and racial construction. In spite of the clarion calls that theorists need to sensitize themselves to the ideological com- ponents between rhetoric, “text,” and audience (McGee, 1990; McKerrow, 1989; Wander, 1983), we are still in the early stages of theo- rizing about the role that race plays in various rhetorical cultures.’ McPhail (1994) has recently remarked that “there has been scant dis- cussion of race and rhetoric which incorporates contemporary perspec- tives” (p. 8). Even when critics have looked at race, there is a tendency

Copyright 0 1998 International Communication Association

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to simply invert discursive binaries rather than “engage in a rhetoric that actively recognizes and seeks to transcend the illusory black and white divisions of race, gender, and the language of negative difference” (McPhail, 1991, p. 12). We argue in this essay that combining the theo- retical insights of rhetoricians and critical race theorists can help us move beyond simple and reductive ways of essentializing race and race rela- tions. This is especially important at a volatile time when the nation is grappling with the ambiguities of California’s propositions 187 (restric- tion of public benefits to illegal residents) and 209 (end of affirmative action).

We are not unmindful that there are both cultural and institutional constraints that have been placed in the path of those theorists inter- ested in interrogating the taken-for-granteds of racial discourse. Research- ers today have to cope with both traditional forms of negative stereo- typing and more subtle forms of “modern” racism (Entman, 1992, pp. 341-342). Degler (1991) explains part of the reason for this when he notes that entire generations have looked askance at studies that focus attention on the racial dimensions o f human activity (p. vii). To compli- cate matters, the issue of race is considered to be so political, subjective, and value laden that it exists beyond the pale of scientific inquiry. Even today, the evocative-yet contested-images associated with color blind- ness and equal opportunity invite us to bracket out discussions of race that may be divisive within our civic polity. As Rigsby (1993) has as- tutely observed, the communication discipline still practices the elite mode, often valorizing the aesthetics of priviledged texts at the expense of ghettoizing “the stories of common citizens” (p. 197).

As rhetorical scholars, we believe that it is possible to provide a fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this type of theoretical approach for the field. As we approach the 21st century, our discipline can no longer assiduously avoid grappling with the complexities and ambiguities of race. In the same way that critics have recently called for radical changes in theorizing about class (Cloud, 1994; Wander, 1983) and gender (Blair, Brown, & Baxter, 1994; Biesecker, 1992; Campbell, 1993), we believe that scholars need to begin taking seriously the ques- tion of how race can be analyzed through discursive perspectives. Such an approach needs to be one that takes into account “the possibility of articulating a social reality in which differences might be complemen- tary, and not merely antagonistic” (McPhail, 1991, p. 8). As Bowers (1994) similarly explained, we need a “new rhetoric” of the “oppressed” that will explicate “rhetoric about race and racist rhetoric in America in the context of a world where race has become a hot button” (p. 232).

This will not be an easy task, because as Sloop and Ono (1997) have opined, critiques of law and justice often involve local commentaries as well as a “dominant system of judgment” (p. 51). In this exploratory

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essay, w’e invite communication scholars to engage in what we call racialized critical rhetorical theorizing (RCRT). This type of framework attempts to assess the ways in which public and legal notions of race influence the ways in which we create histories, cultural memories, nar- ratives, myths, and other discursive units.l In advancing our arguments about RCRT, we believe that we can fruitfully combine the work of theorists from a variety of fields and subdisciplines. From within the field of rhetoric, we draw from the work of critics who have explored the importance of ideological criticism (Lee, 1993; Wander & Jenkins, 1972; Wander, 1983) or critical rhetoric (Gaonkar, 1993; Hariman, 1991; McGee, 1990; McKerrow, l989,1991a, 1991b, 1993a, 1993b; Murphy, 1995; Owen & Ehrenhaus, 1993; Strine, 1991). At the same time, we profit from the attention that has been given to the issue of race con- struction in a variety of other fields, including Asian American studies (Gotanda, 1995); economics (Feiner & Roberts, 1995); education (Ladson-Billings, 1995); film studies (Fregoso, 1993; Diawara, 1993); law (Brown, 1995; Delgado, 1990; Gutierrez-Jones, 1995; Matsuda, 1987); mass communications (Entman, 1990; Ettema, 1990; van Dijk, 1987); and sociology (Wellman, 1977).

Such an interdisciplinary approach is needed because recent critical vocabulziries do not always illuminate the features and functions of “racialized” discourse. Calvert’s ( 1997) examination of critical race theo- rists’ free speech scholarship observed that CRT approaches were being formulated without the field of comm~nication.~ For example, whereas we are sympathetic to the project of “critical rhetoric,” even this ap- proach rarely discusses the instantiation of legal regimes on a daily ba- sis, especially if the word “race” is not used as a social marker of differ- ence. Ono and Sloop’s (1995) analysis of Japanese American newspa- pers is a rare exception? We have even fewer analyses that examine how “the law”’ can be viewed as “a source of oppression or of relief” (Gotanda, 1995, p. 128).

This exploratory essay fills this void by providing a preliminary bridge between critical rhetoric and critical race theories. In order to accom- plish our task, we have divided this essay into five sections. In the first section, we provide a brief discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of critical rhetoric and vernacular discourse for racial studies. In the sec- ond segment, we illuminate the ways in which legal race theorists have contributed to our understanding of ordinary discourse and outline the basic arguments of racialized critical rhetorical theorizing (RCRT). The third part of the essay puts theory into practice and uses the recent Propo- sition 187 controversy as a way of illustrating the heuristic value of RCRT. The fourth segment discusses the importance of positive recon- structions and race consciousness. Finally, the fifth portion elaborates on the innplications of this and similar racialized investigations.

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Critical Rhetoric and Vernacular Discourse In the field of rhetoric, the dominant theories continue to privilege the great (and powerful) speakers or writers, the purveyors of everlasting truth, beauty, or goodness (McGee, 1990). When race is discussed at all, it is usually in the context of the persuasive influence of race or racial differences. As McPhail(l994) explains, such frameworks may allow us at times to understand the importance of unique linguistic practices, self-definition, or the power of negative persuasion, but provides little information concerning the “epistemological foundations of race” (pp. 4-5). Whether dominated by the formulas of the classics or the modern suppositions of neutrality and objectivity, ordinary citizens are placed on the periphery of rhetorical performances. Promised “order, equanim- ity, coherence, and reason” (Owen & Ehrenhaus, 1993, p. 169), readers are continually bombarded by “totalizing theory” (Condit, 1993).

In recent years, a growing number of critics have argued that we need to move away from the “logics of elite discourse” and start decoding the “rhetorical coins of elite discourse’’ (Condit, 1993, p. 178). Viewed as a complementary discourse, the study of the ‘cvernacular7’ (Ono & Sloop, 1995) is employed by critical rhetoricians as a way of paying attention to the concrete, immediate, and material needs of ordinary human be- ings (Cloud, 1994; Wood & Cox, 1993). This paradigmatic shift in emphasis invites the rhetorician to highlight the ways in which local knowledge-to borrow from Geertz (1983)-is created by ordinary citi- zens through the pragmatic and particular experiences of life. The critic no longer focuses exclusive attention on the rhetorical aesthetics, episte- mology, or goodness of a single text or influential orator; she also criti- cally examines the discourses of the average human being engaged in the production of rhetoric. As West ( 1993) has explained, “individuals are capable of articulating the contradictions, inconsistencies, and ambigu- ities that encompass their lives” (p. 214).

Theoretically, supplementing our existing studies of elite discourse with vernacular investigations has several advantages. First, if rhetoric is concerned with the symbolic influence of discourse in the public sphere, then expanding the range of social actors who are potentially involved in the coproduction of belief and value systems makes sense. Like the movement studies that were theoretically popular in the 1970s and 1980s, vernacular critiques expand the focus of our attention so that we now have to be sensitive to the ways that rhetors, audiences, and their frag- ments are all related in the process of knowledge production. As McPhail (1994) has pointed out, we need to remember that we are all complicitous in creating a “polarized, negativistic world” (p. 121), and coherent uni- ties can only come when we can remember our similarities as well as differences. At the same time, discussions of vernacular discourse allow

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the critic to become an empathic critic (Condit, 1993), a scholar who can now claim to be avoiding the pitfalls of totalization and essential- ism. Furthermore, criticism of vernacular discourses allows the scholar to become a surrogate for political positions, often localized and muted. A researcher can in this way illustrate her or his concern for the disempowered or the disenfranchised by providing a voice for those who are usually silenced in other communication frameworks. If Foucault (1980) is correct in his view that power, knowledge, and discourse are intimately related, then we can be self-reflexive about our own privi- leged positions.

Yet, in defending the extension of vernacular discourse, we are also mindful of some of the pitfalls of such research. Postmodern studies of vernacular discourse have the potential danger of ascribing too much influence to massive layers of discourse while minimizing the impact of the material changes existing outside the text (Cloud, 1994). A lens that sees only large hegemonic structures may miss the disproportionate in- fluence that individual social actors may have on political or social poli- cies. At the same time, some ideological studies that build on notions of contingency, doxa, and polysemy sometimes take the form of relativistic interrogations that refuse to defend any particular lines of argument as politically empowering. McKerrow’s ( 1989) work on critical rhetoric, for example, often defends a position of constant theoretical investiga- tion and reflection that eschews the defense of any foundational stand. Critical race theorists who advocate adopting forms of “race conscious- ness” (Peller, 1990) see such a stance as potentially nihilistic rather than socially engaged. Uniting CRT’s concern for the politicization of “race” with critical rhetoricians’ discursive reflexivity seems to us to be an ex- cellent theoretical approach for tackling the complexities of the Proposi- tion 187 debates.

Before moving on to our own discussions of racialized critical rhetorical theory (RCRT), we believe that it is important that we note how other academic communities have dealt with the discursive ambiguities of the notion of race. More specifically, in the next section we look at how some members of the legal community have engaged in work that complements our studies of critical rhetoric and vernacular discourse.

The Racialized Critical Rhetorical Theory Challenge to Legal Orthodoxy At the same time that skeptical rhetoricians have been advancing their postmodern arguments against the modern canons of discourse, radical theorists in the field of law have also been contemplating the possibility that scholars need to pay attention to the intimate relationship that ex-

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ists among language, power, and race. In the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s, a growing number of researchers (Crenshaw, 1988; Delgado, 1990; Hayman, 1995; Matsuda, 1987; Williams, 1991) began arguing that the rhetoric of race had been continually domes- ticated by paying too much attention to elite courtrooms and not enough to lay interpretations of social justice. From the perspective of critical race theorists, empowered lawyers, judges, and jurists were preoccupied with jurisprudential models that were saturated with classical liberal assumptions of legal neutrality, color blindness, and individual blame.s In the same way that critical rhetoricians attacked the privileged epistemologies of the greats, critical race theorists (CRTs) began arguing that racism was not something that could be cured or created by the single legal actor.

Critics of the critical race theorists contend that this political move- ment valorizes the importance of racial difference and maintains social polarities, without examining the “conflicting and contradictory ele- ments” within racial discourse (Dyson, 1993, p. 129). Leo (19951, a columnist for U.S. News 8 World Report, lamented the ways in which “critical race theory” was setting the stage for a “nullification move- ment” that would bring about the “isolation of blacks from their natu- ral allies” (p. 24). In their attacks on “Whiteness,” critical race theorists have angered classical liberals who worry that this approach leads us to new forms of binarism and separatism. Lewis (1997), for example, ar- gues that “Critical Race theory is providing an‘ intellectual foundation for newly flourishing forms of black separateness . . . . Critical Race theorists reject the classical liberal view of integration as the ultimate goal” (p.

Other critics, like Henry Louis Gates (1994), have argued that the “temporal benefits” of the CRT victories are outweighed by the “politi- cal damage” that could come from endangering the “already fragile lib- eral alliance” (p. 58). Rosen (1996) goes so far as to argue that the practical application of CRT would encourage more theorists to accept controversial verdicts like the one in the 0. J. Simpson trial.

In spite of these criticisms, critical race theorists provide us with a cogent theoretical framework that advances at least three insightful and related claims:

(1) Racism is a complex construct that involves individuals and insti- tutions that are not normally considered complicitous;

(2) Discourse theorists need to pay attention to competing histories and narratives that have created complex racial characterizations; and

(3) The “rights talk” of classical liberal theorizing has become depoliticized and has stalled.

Together, these three postulates of CRT go beyond monological con-

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structions or expressions of race neutrality. If McPhail(l994) is correct in his claims that many of us are complicitous in creating this discourse, then we need perspectives that explain how racism is not something engaged in only occasionally by solitary deviant demagogues. Critical race theorists have engaged the complex layers of legal discourse that may have hindered our understanding of the systematic nature of rac- ism. As one of the harshest critics of CRT has reluctantly admitted (Rosen, 1996), these theorists have reminded us of the “jarring gap in percep- tions” among various races (p. 34). This type of assumption requires theorists to engage in critiques of both the proponents and opponents of legislation that touches on race. The question, of course, is whether the critical race theorists’ defense of difference is the type of stance that reifies and legitimates another brand of racist discourse.

The second postulate of the CRT perspective revolves around the com- mitment to provide counterhistories that contest the construction of race in mainstream accounts of civil rights. Critical race theorists became controversial in the late 1980s because they were unwilling to acknowl- edge the tremendous gains that supposedly had come from the law’s incremental reforms, promoted in the name of neutrality and fairness, since World War 11. For example, take the celebrated reversal of the “separate but equal” doctrine by Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In orthodox legal discussions of the case, Brown is a key opinion often considered to be one of the shining moments of Supreme Court inter- vention, where a progressive judicial institution helped advance the cause of justice in spite of some recalcitrance. As the story goes, this was a momentous achievement for all races because it now meant that “equal- ity” would longer be an empty term. People of color seeking education, housing opportunities, jobs, and travel accommodations could now rely on the power of government to advance the cause of freedom and jus- tice. Within the classical liberal scenario, African Americans and other marginalized communities profited from a discourse that built on the notion that the law could be color-blind.

The third postulate of the critical race theorists is that traditional de- fenses based on “rights talk” or colorblindness are not contributing to racial harmony. CRTs worry that some classical liberal conceptual as- sumptions may be vacuous because of the persistence of institutional racism within the broader rhetorical culture. For many such writers, even the most enlightened of jurists has little understanding or apprecia- tion of the plight of people of color. In advancing counternarratives, Afri- can American scholars highlight the criminal treatment of Blacks in grow- ing prison populations and the White flight from the urban areas (Will- iams, 1991; Bell, 1992), while Asian American writers emphasize the persistent influence of legal narratives since the time of the Chinese Ex-

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clusion Acts (Chen, 1991). From a CRT perspective, both conservative and liberal members of institutions like the Supreme Court share a false consciousness that assumes that courts and legislatures can resolve the tensions that exist between subjectivity and objectivity, reason and pas- sion, intentionalism and determinism, individualism and communalism.

In place of moderate and formalistic racial reforms, critical race theo- rists advocate the need for positive reconstructions in the form of theo- ries that come from the lived experiences of traditionally disempowered and disenfranchised groups. Such critics contend that we need paradig- matic approaches to discourse that no longer universalize experience, and they emphasize the need for studying the situated knowledges that come from detailed investigations of unique experiences of socially con- structed races. Unlike legal skeptics, who have little or no use for rights talk, critical race theorists contend that postmodern paradigms need to see the law as a series of narratives or myths that are in part constructed by audiences as well as privileged elites (Delgado, 1995, pp. 37-96).’ These writers thus celebrate the contingencies and ambiguities of the legal system because they believe that there are redemptive possibilities of a law that sees the ubiquitous nature of racism. As Bowers (1996) explains, these critical race theorists try to “pinpoint the dominance of the rhetorical agenda in legal decision making that goes on daily” (p. 491). Acting as surrogates for the marginalized and the disempowered, such scholars argue that neither elite traditionalists nor radical deconstructions represent the unique contributions that can be made by people of color who have experienced the challenges of living in a world filled with institutional discrimination. Unlike orthodox legal perspec- tives on color blindness, this stance demands that academicians bring to the surface the taken-for-granted assumptions that are embedded in both the judicial and public sphere.

As noted above, we believe that it is theoretically possible to advance our understanding of race by melding together some of the work of those scholars in critical rhetoric, vernacular discourse, and critical race theory (CRT). From critical rhetoric, we learn an appreciation of the ways that critics need to be sensitive to nuances of rhetorics of class, domination, and emancipation (McKerrow, 1989). We applaud the re- lentless interrogations of the taken-for-granted assumptions of privileged ideologies (McGee, n.d., pp. 2-6). When we turn our attention to the issue of vernacular, we see this as a potentially heuristic stance that in- vites us to review the ways in which ordinary citizens contribute to the production of public knowledge. The critical race theory perspective informs us of the ways in which seemingly neutral legal and public fo- rums may be institutional settings for advancing particular political agenda.

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Putting Theory into Practice: Interrogating the Local Narratives of Proposition 187 Immigration, legal and otherwise, has been a ,conundrum for policy makers and opinion leaders since the time of this country’s founders (Chiswick, 1995). Interest in enforcing immigration laws has waxed and waned, depending on the economic, political, and social mood of the country. As a consequence of U.S. history, we are faced with the tensions between myths and perceptions of our immigrant roots caused by lega- cies of celebration, concern, anger, and hatred directed at specific immi- gration groups-Chinese, Japanese, Irish, Mexicans. For example, dur- ing the mid-l920s, many nativists called for a temporary halt to immi- gration in the name of “Americanization,” in part because more than 14 million people came to America in the first 2 decades of the 20th century (“Immigration Then,” 1996, p. 10). Between the 1924 National Origins Act and the 1965 Immigration Act, immigration was almost totally barred for those from many non-Northern European nations. At the same time, there were occasional instances of government-sanctioned support for temporary immigration labor forces. For example, the 1942 Emergency Farm Labor program reopened the border to Mexican workers (GutiCrrez, 1995, p. 118). By the early 1980s, many Americans were again con- cerned about the alleged dangers that came from illegal immigration, and the federal government passed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. This act tried to curb the employment of “undocumented workers,” and several million illegal immigrants were granted amnesty (“Immigration Now,” 1996, p. 10). Gutitrrez (1995) noted that “as the twentieth century comes to a close immigration has reemerged as one of the most divisive controversies in American politics” (p. 207).

In the 1990s, the border communities of the American Southwest were again faced with debates over the meaning of the term illegal alien. In the case of California and the Proposition 187 initiative, economics, government deficits, raw election-year politics, as well as racialized and nationalistic sentiments coalesced to “focus popu- lar concern on undocumented migration from Mexico” (Johnson, 1995, p. 633) . In November 1994, more than two thirds of California’s voters approved Proposition 187, an initiative aimed at denying health care, education, and other public services to undocu- mented immigrants (Bosniak, 1996, p. 555) . At the same time, the proposition asked that state’s social service providers to report any “suspected” undocumented immigrants to federal and state authori- ties. Critics responded by having mass demonstrations, including one in Los Angeles that drew at least 70,000 people-“many waving Mexican flags” (Comeaux, 1994, p. C8). One of the key drafters of Proposition 187 remarked that such demonstrations “played right

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into our hands” (p. C8). The image of foreign flag-waving reinforced the notion that most of the opponents of this legislation were alien agi- tators who wanted to take advantage of the American system.

Defenders of the proposition included California Governor Peter Wil- son (in the midst of a difficult and acrimonious reelection campaign), former national and western regional directors of the Immigration and Nationalization Service (Alan Nelson and Harold Ezell), and thousands of voters who believed that they had a right to protect their state from economic hardships, ostensibly the consequence of illegal aliens’ work- ing and living in California. To a variety of scholars, Proposition 187 has come to represent a rhetoric of scapegoating, aggression, and resent- ment directed at immigrants, in the U. s. and elsewhere (van Dijk, 1995, 1996; Johnson, 1995,1996; Huspek, 1997).

If we reexamined Proposition 187 from a traditional liberal frame- work, we might conclude that this piece of legislation was neutral on its face and color-blind in practice. After all, Proposition 187 emerged from the populist mechanism of the initiative system, a means through which like-minded citizens might give voice to their policy and legislative con- cerns. As Mehan (1997) has recently noted, “The State of California has a long history of direct-voter initiatives. Initiatives that secure the re- quired number of signatures can be placed on the ballot during the pri- mary or general elections” (p. 254). Yet, as we document below, these initiatives were the product of both elite and vernacular discussions that involved racist subtexts.

Proposition 187 arose from a group of concerned citizens (the “Save Our State” movement), and its victory in the fall 1994 election indicates that many citizens, irrespective of race or ethnicity, believed it would provide relief. As one writer has explained, these citizens “saw them- selves as the last hope for California, economically battered and bleed- ing from tax revolts, race revolts, and natural disasters, and the crash of the defense industry” (Garcia, 1995, p. 118). Part of the rhetorical power of this discourse comes from Proposition 187’s appearance as a discur- sive structure that focuses on issues of fiscal restraint and federal-state relations (Calavita, 1996). Yet, as CRTs have observed, even the most neutral of policy arguments can have political consequences, and in the case of Proposition 187, “it is difficult to refute the claim that the ethnicity of the stereotypical undocumented immigrant played at least some role in [its] passage” (Johnson, 1995, p. 651). As van Dijk (1995) recently noted,“being an ‘illegal’ immigrant in itself is already seen as a crime, an opinion that seamlessly fits in the widespread system of racist prejudices that associate Black and Latino minorities with problems and crime in the first place” (p. 148).

Formalistically, Proposition 187 was shaped to withstand the consti- tutional challenges to the initiative on the basis of racial discrimination

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or equal protection challenges. From a radicalized critical rhetorical stance, however, there are several layers of arguments-from the legal through the historical and political to the social-embedded in the de- bate over Proposition 187 that have racial dimensions that necessitate articulation and examination. Following Garcia (199.9, we believe that the history of immigration policy renders suspect the characterization of the debate over Proposition 187 as “race-neutral” (p. 133).

As rhetorical critics with an eye toward racial and political ideolo- gies, we are sensitive to the different approaches that could be taken in deconstructing and reconstructing this controversy (e. g., McGee, 1980; Wander, 1983; McKerrow, 1989; Ono & Sloop, 1995). We believe, how- ever, that a racialized critical rhetorical approach to Proposition 187 can identify at least three different narrative structures that frame the terms of the debate. The strands include the economizing, the legalizing, and the victimizing clusters of arguments.

Perhaps the dominant motif that frames the discussion of Proposition 187 is the strategic use of economic arguments in the controversy. Calavita (1996) argues, “the dismantling of entitlement and social service pro- grams has been facilitated by the ideology of balanced-budget conserva- tism” (p. 294). Defenders of Proposition 187 equate fairness and justice with economics; as one Californian put it, attacks on the proposition demonstrate “just how asinine the rest of the world is (with some of our own residents included) to take offense with California’s belated attempt, via Proposition 187, at sane money management and common sense” (Shavelle, 1994, p. B l l ) .

Economic problems need economic scapegoats, and in the elite and vernacular tales surrounding Proposition 187, it is the “illegal alien” that is demonized as the cause of California’s troubles. As Edelman (1988) observes, a constructed enemy that is nameless can have evocative sym- bolic power, and, in public policy debates, “the targets of displacement resentment or guilt are often catch-all enemies” (p. 80). In the narratives and myths associated with Proposition 187, foreigners who are unwill- ing to become citizens through the democratizing and nationalizing pro- cesses of democratic government are the economic parasites that are infecting the body politic. More specifically, it is the faceless hordes of Mexicans who cross the borders and sap the resources, perhaps even freedoms, of Californians. In many of these accounts, the term alien is believed to be a marker for illegal residents who can be tracked, identi- fied, and returned. In the economic lexicons of efficiency and cost re- duction, illegal residents are transformed into liabilities that cannot be incurred.

The power of these economic vocabularies comes in part from their ability to avoid more objectionable forms of racism and xenophobia. Bilderback (1989) has observed that anti-immigration rhetorics have

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changed from those that had “immigrants [who] were morally corrupt- ing and subversive of American religious (i.e., Protestant) values, as was said of Irish . . . . In this wave, the restrictionist arguments have been economic” (p. 226). Recognizing that a more scientific, objectivist rhetoric could be both more palatable and useful for sound bites, the “Save Our State” movement couched most of their public pronouncements in this manner. For example, California Governor Pete Wilson (1994) argued before the Los Angeles “town hall” in April 1994 that “this debate isn’t about race, it’s about responsibility” (p. 534). This tactic was designed to deflect frontal assaults and claims that SOS was motivated by racism, nativism, and ethnocentrism.

Arguably, states like California have experienced economic problems over the past decade, and this condition functions as a rhetorical reser- voir that can be consistently tapped into by Proposition 187 supporters. Indeed, these discursive fragments have circulated in the American pub- lic sphere since half a million Repatriados were sent back to Mexico during the Great Depression of the 1930s (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1995). Typical of the modern reconfigurations is the comment by one voter, reported in the San Jose Mercury News:

My main motivation in voting for it was to see the state save money-my money. When I first heard of 187 I was amazed we allowed illegal immigrants into our schools and hospitals-and then paid for them. These people are crooks. (quoted in McLaughlin & Ostrorn, 1994, p. A10)

Similarly, Ronald Prince, cochair of SOS, deflected challenges of rac- ism or nativism by contending that any “attempt to inflame racial ha- tred can only hurt us” (Prince, 1994, p. B19). As California Congress- woman Dana Rohrbacher exclaimed, denying benefits “to illegal aliens doesn’t equate to ethnic cleansing, is not unconstitutional and certainly doesn’t demonize immigrants, illegal or otherwise. . . Spending Califor- nia, and America, into debt to provide benefits to illegal aliens denies everyone opportunity” (Rohrbacher, 1994, p. M4; see also Cervantes, Khokha, & Murray, 1995).

There is little doubt that illegal immigrants have an impact on the public and private economies of California. However, the economic ten- sion regarding immigration policies revolve around whether “immigrants either accept jobs that natives will not do and contribute more to the public purse than they take out, or else take jobs from natives and draw more from the public government services than they pay in taxes” (Chiswick, 1995, p. 48). The precise relationship between immigration and economic growth is still a controversial matter. Yet, when immigra- tion is framed by Proposition 187 supporters, the removal of the immi- grant (legal and illegal) appears to be an issue regulated by the laws of

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nature. Here is a world of limited resources, a place governed by the logics of supply and demand with no place for the alien.

Yet, as many critical race theorists have observed (Bell, 1992; Delgado, 1990; Matsuda, 1987), legal and public texts can contain a number of subnarratives and texts. Here lies the problem with dominant readings of the SOS movement’s rhetoric. SOS leaders who vilify the “alien” si- multaneously refuse to confront the histories of state and federal gov- ernment aid in encouraging immigration to assist private industry. Nor do they consistently attack the garment and agricultural industries that exploit undocumented labor. Moreover, in saving California, Proposi- tion 187 risked the loss of billions of dollars of federal money, incurred millions in direct and indirect enforcement costs, and had the significant potential for increasing medical problems and costs in the future (Cali- fornia Legislative Analyst, 1994, pp. 4-5). To make matters even more complicated, there are layers of arguments that center around the ques- tion of how government officials can make distinctions between pro- ductive and unproductive immigrants (Chiswick, 1995; Brimelow, 1995; Miles, 1995).

Proposition 187 proponents, however, also deployed a rhetoric of victimage. Such forms of “historical amnesia’’ created antipathy among different factions within Black and Latino communities who had forgot- ten their own legacies of victimization (Dyson, 1996, p. 83). By propos- ing selective histories, Californians were invited to focus solely on the ways in which modern immigration policies adversely affect taxpayers’ lives today. Section 1 of Proposition 187 presents their victimization: “The people of California find and declare . . . [Tlhat they have suffered and are suffering personal injury and damage caused by the criminal conduct of illegal aliens in this state” (California Legislative Analyst, 1994, p. 1). These victimage tales of hard-working, earnest Americans occlude and mute the harassment and discrimination narratives of aliens applying for citizenship, employment, or advancement. The typology of illegal immigrant becomes a signifier meaning Mexican (collapsing dis- tinctions among Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Latinos) in a stereo- typical manner similar to the social construction of welfare mother as African American female.

As critical race theorist Cook (1 990) has suggested, critics need to be able to deconstruct these configurations, and, in the case of Proposition 187, we need to be attentive to the multiple and contradictory undercur- rents that have racial overtones (see also Johnson, 1996; Park, 1996). For example, one supporter of Proposition 187 offered his own racially tinged assessment of California’s problems: “Ninety percent of the crimes around here seem to be by Hispanics. Last year I went back to Michigan and I did not hear a thing in Spanish, and it felt good” (quoted in Johnson, 1994, p. D7). Ruth Coffey, founder of Stop Immigration Now, similarly

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contradicted the pure legal and economic animus of immigration re- formers: “I have no intention of being the object of conquest, peaceful or otherwise, by Latinos, Asians, Blacks, or Arabs, or any other group of individuals who have claim to my country” (quoted in Cervantes, Khokha, & Murray, 1995, p. 3). As one Latino advocate stated, “we have too many aliens out here. I pass by thousands of them every day” (quoted in McLaughlin & Ostrom, 1994, p. A-10).

Supporters of Proposition 187 are thus not simply rationalists, they are natives defending their land from the “Other.” As SOS activist Bar- bara Coe offers, “these people do not come to assimilate or contribute to our society. We’re talking about the underpinnings of our laws, our language, our culture, and our history” (Hayward, 1994, p. Dl ) . Even some recent immigrants shared such sentiments. For example, one self- identified Latino immigrant exclaimed, “I am convinced that legal Latino immigrants and citizens do not want to see this motherland of our choice became a banana republic like the places we left” (Waechter, 1994, p.B6). Consequently, these American victims or defenders must protect the U.S. from aliens who “trample our laws and our flag, prey on our society and insist that we speak their language, teach their language and have writ- ten documents printed in their language” (Parks, 1994, p. B8). Such nationalistic sentiments in the pro-reform voices suggest that economics and legalities were only part of their motivation to support Proposition 187. Indeed, for all these patriots’ references to citizen rights, tradition, and national unity, they ignored the possibility that Proposition 187 could “foster an atmosphere of prejudice and discrimination and an at- mosphere of racial divisiveness” (Colina, 1995, p. 17).

The economic, legal, and victimage clusters provide a potent and co- herent rationalization for reforms when they appear separately, but their power is magnified when they are amalgamated. This made it more dif- ficult to resist the initiatives in California and elsewhere that passed restrictive and punitive legislation (Idelson, 1996; Zielinski, 1994). A racialized critical rhetorical theoretical (RCRT) perspective would refuse to be satisfied with classical liberal explanations that the passage of Propo- sition 187 was neutral on its face or in its consequences. Although we have kept separate the economic, legal, and victimage arguments used in Proposition 187, when they are found in the discourse they are not so analytically distinct. Hayward (1 994) reports that some immigration reformers “talk about a threat to cultural integrity in the United States. And some display a thinly veiled hostility to immigrants themselves” (p. D l ) . Indeed, one interviewee offered some tortured logic on the matter: “I do not believe a country and a culture that Balkanizes can continue to exist, and that’s what is happening. The most difficult thing is integrat- ing extremely different cultures, and it’s creating all kinds of intoler- ance” (Hayward, 1994, p. D2).

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Yet, as critical race theorists and other scholars have pointed out, deconstructive criticism needs to be accompanied by analyses of recon- structive alternatives (Cook, 1990). It is our contention that there is much to be salvaged from the Proposition 187 debates, and that not all forms of vernacular discourse are inherently constraining.

Positive Reconstructions and the Heuristic of Racialized Critical Rhetorics It is our contention that in the process of trying to pass Proposition 187, the advocates of the SOS campaign also mobilized opposition forces that encouraged the creation of new vernaculars and provided discur- sive spaces for the disempowered. These were not as strategic as the dominant discourse that supported Proposition 187. Through letters to the editor, newspaper accounts, E-mail list servers, conversations, and everyday speech, various critics of the proposition articulated their com- plaints that race-neutral discourses hid “racial subordination” (Garcia, 1995, p. 120). For example, one young Chicana responded to a per- ceived attack on her ethnicity by repeating a popular slogan-“we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us” (quoted in Martinez, 1995, p. 30).

Critics of Proposition 187 used four interrelated strategies in their responses to this initiative-they crafted their own narratives celebrat- ing the contributions of immigrants to America, they united around cel- ebrations of “La Raza,” they pointed out contradictions in the pro-l 87 tales, and they offered competing counterhistories of immigration laws. According to critical race theorist GutiCrrez-Jones (1999, these types of “nonlawyerly” critiques provide “a new mobility. . . that has the poten- tial to radically disrupt institutional pursuits, and thereby open the door to world views canonically sanctioned by legal institutions” (p. 17). As we argue below, even as these critics lost the initial battles over Proposi- tion 187, their narratives provided new configurations of arguments that countered the hegemonic tales of the pro-1 87 supporters.

In order for these new voices to be effective, they had to be “delibera- tive, participatory, and respectful of difference and diversity” (Cook, 1990, p. 985). They also needed to be adaptive to situations where the marginal discourse does not “function in tandem with the dominant” (On0 & Sloop, 1995, p. 26). McPhail (1991) has described some of these preconditions in his discussions of how the “dialectic” of rhetoric can help us in our analysis of the personal, localized, and often opposi- tional narratives. Such theoretical analyses invite the critic to find the bridges as well as the walls that have been built at contested borderlands.

In the case of Proposition 187, the presence of positive reconstruc-

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tions supports the claims of the critical race theorists who defend the importance of vernacular discourse. One Los Angeleno, reflecting on the aftermath of the last earthquake, believed that “I and all my friends just don’t know what we would have done without all the ‘Juans’ and ‘Pedros’ waiting to be hired. . . . I, for one, am thankful that the harsh provisions of Proposition 187 were not in place” (Green, 1994, p. B16). Similarly, a voter for Proposition 187 critiqued the economic argument by opposing it-‘‘I do not hold that 187 solves any economic prob- lem”-and highlighted the human perspective-“Most illegal immigrants are guilty of only wanting a better life for themselves and their families, for which I hold them veritably blameless” (Emigh, 1994, p. B6).

Such commentaries are left out of apparently more rational accounts of legal and public debates over Proposition 187 because they appear subject, emotive, and visceral. Yet both CRTs and critical rhetoricians vehemently argue that these are points of contestation that cannot be ignored. The participants in this debate provided us with fragments that illustrated how they were not fooled by the language of color blindness, and sometimes Proposition 187 elicits a response that perpetuates the very binaries that McPhail (1991) warns us about. For example, as one Latino citizen remarked, “to all Raza (Latinos) out there, remember that the Raza is better united, so let’s stick together and fight 187” (GutiCrrez, 1995, p. 10). Another Florida commentator wrote in the Spanish-lan- guage newspaper, El Heraldo:

I t is incomprehensible that a nation formed by immigrants now rejects them. But what is even more incomprehensible is that there are Latinos, or Americans of Hispanic descent, that are so fervently and rabidly opposed to their Hispanic brothers [sic] (our transla- tion; “Immigrantes,” n.d., p. 1)

Even more pointedly, a young Latino observed, “There’s much talk about the millions of illegal immigrants who come to the U.S. every year, but you know what, they’re talking about Mexicans and Latinos” (Sanchez, 1995, p. 92).

Unfortunately some of these tales of “negative difference” (McPhail, 1991) create one sense of community pride while undermining the chances for broader social reform. By simply inverting racial hierachies and de- fending different essentialisms, even the opponents of proposition 187 may be unconsciously perpetuating racial stereotyping. This is what McPhail (1997) means when he espouses the belief that “complicity is thus a consequence of oppositional discourse that uncritically accepts the underlying assumptions of foundationist or essentialist classifica- tion” (p. 163). What frustrated many marginalized groups in the Propo- sition 187 debate was the recognition that many of their neighbors re- fused to share their views on this legislation. One editorial statement in

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La Opinion stated in 1994 that “the issue is that the Latino immigrant community, and many native-born Americans, are getting impatient with seeing how a simplistic and utilitarian discourse, insistent upon mini- mizing immigrants’ contribution to this nation . . . and describing immi- grants . . . like parasites” (“La Marcha,” 1994, p. 9A). A Southern Cali- fornia voter remarked that “it is a sad day when anger and fear make people vote for something bad in order to send a message” (Brean, 1994, B6). Another critic succinctly relocated Proposition 187 within the realpolitik of the 1994 elections:

Once again, we voters have permitted ourselves to be bamboozled into allowing the candidates to determine the ground on which they run. The most telling case for me was the race for governor. Wilson could never have been reelected if he had run on his record, so he ran instead on the fears and prejudices inherent in Proposition 187 and won with- out raising a sweat. (Stevens, 1994, p. B6)

Such local critiques nevertheless buttress authoritative critics like Lasso (1995), who argued that “Proponents promised that Proposition 187 would (a) stop illegal immigration; and (b) save California millions of dollars a year. The law, however, was not designed to accomplish either goal” (p. 2). One citizen thought he understood who was being hailed by the law when he opined that

Backers of the controversial Proposition 187 have claimed all along that the measure is not racist. I am sure that the people who scream “Mexican lover” and “Beaner” at me when they see a “No on 187” bumper sticker on my car will also agree that the measure is not racist. (Quintero, 1994, p. 6B)

By highlighting the contradictions, ambiguities, and latent meanings within such lexicons, racialized critical rhetorical theorizing (RCRT) goes beyond the CRT attempt to uncritically invert racial binaries or em- power different groups. Instead, this more nuanced theoretical approach looks at the ways that “the law” is interpreted, applied, and understood by the ordinary citizens who find themselves configured as “the Other.”

Part of the difficulty of confronting Proposition 187 came from the racial choices that had to be made by opponents as well as proponents of the legislation-both are complicitous without fully realizing their implicature. Would the social agents involved in this controversy accept socially constructed views of race and simply invert the valence of the categorization? Or would opponents defend a stance that celebrated multiethnicity? The apparent neutrality of Proposition 187 could re- spond to both critiques by claiming that each violated the nation’s com- mitment to color blindness. As many scholars have noted, racial catego- ries are complex, often involving multiple categories that influence our

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views of reality, identity, and society (Wetherell & Potter, 1992, pp. 13- 14). This exacerbated the problem for Proposition 187 opponents who sometimes saw this legislation as “an attempt to further criminalize people of color, suppress their culture, and divide them along class and racial lines” (Garcia, 1995, p. 148).

Part of the strategy of Proposition 187 critics was to contextualize the debate so that insinuations of race and difference, and their consequences, could be made manifest. This did not always create socially constructive vernaculars. McLaughlin and Ostrom (1994), quoting from a radical anti-Proposition 187 flyer, demonstrated how this oppositional discourse joined in the racialist rhetoric: “This was an all out Republican, white supremacist, Nazi mandate across the country” (p. A9). Another critic lamented that “the current attack on immigration is Anglo California’s last, futile stand against the Latinization and Asianization of the Golden State. Get used to it, old Californios” (Rubio, 1994, p. 6B).

What began as a monologic expression of the dangers of the foreign Other was transformed into a complex debate regarding the meaning of American citizenship and the social and political power that comes from belonging to particular racial categories in the U.S. Is it possible that the vernacular critics have tapped into a recognition that people of color are not the only “races” being constructed or reconfigured in the Proposi- tion 187 debate? Garcia (199.9, a Chicano critical race theorist, makes just such a claim when he observes that “Proposition 187 can be viewed as the latest in a long line of immigration laws which have a racial subtext. Through its exclusion of non-natives, immigration law has operated to define whiteness and nonwhiteness” (p. 122).

This supports Bowers’s (1994) claim that racist discourse is some- times “erratic and functions unpredictably” (p. 233) . From an RCRT perspective this opening up of alternative public space means that par- ticipants can engage in racial and ethnic critiques that reconfigure our notions of economics, law, and victimage. Audiences are invited to ex- amine the ways in which the “Save Our State” campaign is more than a battle about the problems of immigration. It is also about the social construction of races, allocation of scarce resources, and the limits of a truly democratic society. In a short period of time, the debates in Cali- fornia have become representative anecdotes that symbolize much larger divisions in America. The mantras of classical liberalism are being ques- tioned by new constituents who will silently walk away. By crafting op- positional vernaculars, the potential targets of institutional surveillance now voice their opinions about the significance of Proposition 187. For example, Latino citizens who discuss the measure can now counter the purported neutrality of the law and the logic of economics with tales of harassment and intolerance (Barth, 1994). The critic can help mediate as well as amplify these vernacular rhetorics.

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Following van Dijk (1993), we realize that elites need not be left out of this debate because they too are divided and are a part of the general public. For example, Gil Garcetti, district attorney for Los Angeles, linked the initiative to Japanese American internment policies during World War I1 (Pyle & Shuster, 1994). A Los Angeles Times editor argued that

[Tlhis campaign is unprecedented in the harm it does-permanent damage I fear-to an ethnic community I care about deeply and a state I love. I know that many thousands, if not millions, of Mexican American and Mexican citizens feel the same way. (Ayres, 1994, p. A21)

Critics of Proposition 187 can now highlight the social constructions of the illegal alien or immigrant as cultural Other-Asian, Caribbean, Latin American-that sometimes get lost in orthodox codings.

Implications This essay has argued that theorists engaging in racialized critical rhe- torical theorizing (RCRT) can combine the best of rhetorical analysis and critical race theorizing. Like Sloop and Ono (1995), we understand the theoretical importance of studying vernacular discourse, but this needs to be done without simply inverting racial binaries (McPhail, 1994,1997). Theorists who follow the trajectories suggested by critical race theories (CRT) can view the multiple and contested ways that race is constructed in salient social controversies, including Proposition 187. Simply advo- cating formal equality in our laws does not mean that race conscious- ness is obliterated. Theorists are now beginning to take seriously the possibility that race and racial categories involve power relationships as much as they do skin color.

At the same time, without understanding the communicative dimen- sions of race, advocates of CRT may simply reproduce and invert the binaries that have helped to create racial tensions. A more nuanced ap- proach to racial discourse needs to avoid automatically celebrating the virtues of vernaculars or oppositional rhetorics that may at times reify the very narratives that perpetuate racial oppression and social injustice. For example, arguing that only “Whites” can be racist, or that people of color are incapable of discrimination, maintains dichotomous lines that perpetuate social injustices. When we turn to the specific examples of propositions, we note that there is a difference between being race con- scious and engaging in practices of racism, and that difference depends on the self-reflexivity that comes from attending to the ideological di- mensions of both elite and vernacular texts. Critical race analyses will not suffice. Part of this self-reflexivity means going beyond simple Black and White analysis that caricature Proposition 187 as a restriction foisted

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upon marginalized communities by empowered elites. Rather, a more nuanced account of the discourse surrounding the passage of the act shows that this resolution divided many people of color as well as “Whites.” Exit polls showed that “a healthy majority of African Ameri- can and Latino voters were opposed” to Proposition 209 (Stall & Morain, 1996, p. A l ) .

We contend that scholars can perform racialized critical rhetorical theorizing (RCRT), bringing together the interdisciplinary insights of critical race theorists (CRT) and critical rhetoricians (Ono & Sloop, 1995). From the critical race theorists, we gain an appreciation of the ways that purportedly neutral discussions of race often mask racial cat- egories, experiences, and values. We also recognize the need for narra- tives and other nontraditional forms of argument that are usually char- acterized as “extra”-judicial and inconsequential. Race-conscious tales detail the experiences of the “aliens” whose voices are muted in eco- nomic discussions of Proposition 187,

Communication scholars, with their knowledge of the contested na- ture of language and power, augment these insights by refusing to uncritically valorize a statement just because it is being espoused by the “other.” I t is not without irony that many of the proponents of Proposi- tion 187 were able to characterize themselves as victims and as the mod- ern standard bearers of the color blind, beloved community of Martin Luther King, Jr. Even the clearest laws that seem to be racially neutral need to have contexts, and both critical race theorists and communica- tion scholars have much to learn from each other.

By participating in both deconstructive and reconstructive critiques, we furthermore contend that theorists can walk the treacherous line between nihilist dismantling of the master’s tools (Lorde, 1993) and un- critical celebration of the tenets of classical liberalism. In the same spirit as that of McPhail’s (1996) quest for rhetorical “coherence,” we hope that a growing community of scholars will agree that the accentuation of “race” need not be ignored in communication studies.

Several years after the passage of Proposition 187, we find ourselves debating new resolutions like California’s so-called civil rights initiative, Proposition 209-a referendum suggesting the elimination of govern- ment-sponsored affirmative action programs. Even the Clinton adminstration has found itself supporting the passage of laws that “sig- nificantly restrict immigrants’ rights” (“The Constitutional,” 1997, p. 1850).

Proponents and opponents of measures such as Propositions 187 and 209 are now confronted by social realities that are very different than those envisioned in 1963 by civil rights leaders. As Bates (1996) recently opined, “King [Martin Luther, Jr.] wasn’t advocating a colorblind soci- ety. Rather he was pressing for a color-tolerant society” (p. B7). The

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irony is that perhaps the only way to transcend racial problems is to confront them critically.

Marouf Hasian, Jr., is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Arizona State University-Tempe. He is author of the Rhetoric of Eugenics in Anglo-American Thought. Fernando Delgado is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Arizona State University West. His work has appeared in several journals, including Communication Quarterly, Howard Journal of Communications, and Western Journal of Communication. The authors would like to thank the reviewers at Communication Theory for their helpful critiques. We also would like to acknowledge the assistance of John Spencer of Fletcher Library, Arizona State University West, and Janet Soper and Mary Fran Draisker at the Publication Assistance Center, ASU College of Public Programs.

. Author-

’ For examples of the growing community of communication scholars advocating that attention be paid to the intimate relationship between race and discourse, see Bowers, 1994; Condit & Lucaites, 1993; Entman, 1990, 1992; Ettema, 1990; Flores, 1996; Gray, 1995; Gresson, 1995; McPhail, 1994; Nakayama & Krizek, 1995; Ono & Sloop, 1995; Shome, 1996; van Dijk, 1987,1993.

One of the best theoretical discussions of the relationships among some of these discursive units can be found in Condit and Lucaites (1993). In this essay, we will discuss myths as enduring stories that are retold across time or cultures, or both. By histories, we mean those punctuations of time that are considered to be elite records of temporal events. By collective memory, we mean vernacular remembrances of historical events.

The best bibliographic collection of information on critical race theory can be found in Delgado and Stefancic (1993). This work indexes 217 essays written on critical race theory by 1993, and this number continues to grow. For scholars interested in more manageable introductions to CRT, we would point to Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas (1995) and Delgado (1995).

For some other rare exceptions, see the work of Delgado (1995); Flores (1996); Kray (1993); Nakagawa (1990); Nakayama & Krizek (1995).

Delgado (1990), one of the leading CRT commentators, has suggested that this “loose coali- tion” characterizes its scholarship by highlighting: (1) an insistence on naming our own reality; (2) the belief that knowledge and ideas are powerful; (3) a readiness to question basic premises of moderatehncremental civil rights law; (4) the borrow- ing of insights from social science on race and racism; (5) critical examination of the myths and stories powerful groups use to justify racial subordination; (6) a more contextualized treatment of doctrine; (7) criticism of liberal legalism; and (8) an interest in the structural determinism-the ways in which legal tools and thought structures can impede law reform. (p. 95)

Many of these critiques ironically prove some of the arguments advanced by critical race theo- rists. For example, neither Leo (1995) nor Lewis (1997) discuss in any detail any of the complex positionalities or issues raised by a variety of people of color. We have no discussion of Chicana, Asian American, Native American, or even “Whiteness” issues. Their automatic association be- tween CRT and “Blacks” reified the very racial categories that are being critiqued. Williams (1997), in her response to Lewis (1997) and other critics, notes that CRT is “not a conspiracy,” and that: it is by no means a “black” movement, even if you think “race” excludes those who call themselves “white.” Informal and interdisciplinary, there is more diversity and disagreement at its meetings than at most academic gatherings. And if there is any ideological coherence to the group, it is of a decidedly-indeed insistently-integration bent. Those who attend the conferences are black, white, Latino, Asian and South Asian, Native American, gay, straight, libertarian, Marxist, gentile, Jew- ish, Buddhist, feminist, Hindu, Muslim, Republican, pleasant, uncooperative and agnostic. (p. 10) ’ For an insightful summary of the legal skeptics’ position, usually known as the critical legal studies movement (CLS), see the work of Sandmann (1994). Bordering on theoretical nihilism, these commentators use critical histories (Forbath, 1991; Gordon, 1984), poststructural critiques (Heller, 1984), and deconstructive interrogations in the hopes that this skepticism will emancipate their readers and the members of the public by critiquing (Kelman, 1987) existing institutions and revealing the inherent politics of the law (Kairys, 1990; Kelman, 1987). * President Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Im- migration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996 (“The Constitutional,” 1997, p. 1850). These laws cut back on the rights of both legal and illegal aliens. For example, these restrictions

. Notes

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