Following much anticipation, the WRD department hosted a virtual talk by Dr. Ursula Ore from Arizona State University on Monday of last week. The talk was focused on the perspectives of her award winning book Lynching: Rhetoric, Violence, and American Identity <\/em>, the winner of the Rhetoric Society of America Book Award for 2020. Dr. Ore\u2019s captivating book investigates the history of lynching as a racialized practice of civic engagement and American identity that works to communicate the meanings and confines of citizenship in this nation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Ore\u2019s background is one she notes as less than conventional, as she is a rhetorician and a social scientist; but it adds up when considering her position as Professor of Ethics and Associate Professor of African American Studies and Rhetoric at Arizona State. She detailed her interests as rooted in discourse of persuasion as something both rhetorical and social. She remains interested in the rhetoric of un-freedom, how black Americans use rhetoric to create a future they want to have, and the rhetorical gymnastics performed by law enforcement and the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summarizing her book for our audiences, she started by talking about the history of lynching, which began as an 18th century effort to protect America from \u201cBritish allies.\u201d Referring to somebody as a \u201clyncher\u201d, then, became synonymous with referring to someone as an \u201cAmerican Loyalist.\u201d A private lynching court came forward and, backed by patriots as a valid effort towards independence, became a symbol of democracy. As Tories were violently punished, the target of lynching became the more general political other. As lynching became a normalized and politically validated means of protecting democracy, developing racial prejudices in the American south and frontier territories adopted lynching as a violent means of protecting and making exclusive American identity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her talk, Dr. Ore drew astute comparisons between citizenship performed by lynching and the citizenship performed by the killing of African Americans in the 21st century. She referenced the heartwrenching murder of Trayvon Martin, citing the rhetorical gymnastics employed by law enforcement to portray Martin as a political other rather than the innocent American he was, is. In particular, she talked about the pathetically stereotypical and criminalizing rhetoric employed by acquitted murderer George Zimmerman that effectively persuaded the court from viewing him as \u201cZimmerman the murderer\u201d to \u201cZimmerman the Hero of White Women\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can rhetoric be used to frame murder as chivalry? One rhetorical approach is the framing of white women as fragile and vulnerable when, of course, they are actually ultra-protected in white America, as was made obvious by the acquittal of Zimmerman.  Dr. Ore writes extensively about the phenomenon in her book, and continued to recount her findings for audiences Monday night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Ore hosted an extensive Question and Answer session after her talk, which began with a question about her current research interest. Dr. Ore explained that her research is taking the direction of investigating the construction of black womanhood and misogyny, and how society at large contributes to the unsolicited construction of female black identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on her experience being violently assaulted by a campus cop at Arizona State, she told us \u201cI wasn’t acting how a woman is supposed to act\u201d during the altercation, which resulting in her physical beating by a man. \u201cI had to find a way how other women had lived through that trauma as well. The second book project really examines civility, that explores how civility functions as a form of racial centrality that snatches women of color, or simply black women, back into a past imagining who they should be and how they should perform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She referenced her experience as it pertained to teaching and research, citing a need to \u201cdo what you teach\u201d and her need to ask herself, upon facing court charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, \u201cHow do I use language of rhetoric to gain a voice in the court of public opinion?\u201d Even as an expert she struggled to convince the court and the university of her innocence in totality, experiencing wavering support from the university throughout her case.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Ore\u2019s critical review of lynching as performative citizenship provides a crucial framework for understanding the killing of black Americans today. Her powerful work details motivation and momentum for civil violence, and suggests rhetoric as the tool-of-choice for push-back by black Americans. Her work as a rhetorician and a social scientist make possible a discourse for change following her talk, something students and faculty alike are now more equipped to consider truthfully. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WRD Speaker Series last week hosted Dr. Ursula Ore, who talked about her and research on the history and rhetoric of lynching in America. Here’s a summation for those missed out on the event!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":11281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559,9],"tags":[563,551,24,544,48],"class_list":["post-11274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-department-news-events","category-events","tag-events","tag-research","tag-rhetoric","tag-wrd","tag-wrd-speaker-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}