{"id":21993,"date":"2012-03-27T16:34:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T16:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=21993"},"modified":"2012-03-27T16:34:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T16:34:59","slug":"the-prophetic-voice-and-the-face-of-the-other-in-barack-obamas-a-more-perfect-union-address-march-18-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=21993","title":{"rendered":"The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack Obama&#8217;s &#8220;A More Perfect Union&#8221; Address, March 18, 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1353\/rap.0.0101\" target=\"_blank\">The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack Obama&#8217;s &#8220;A More Perfect Union&#8221; Address, March 18, 2008<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/rhetoric_and_public_affairs\" target=\"_blank\">Rhetoric &amp; Public Affairs<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/rhetoric_and_public_affairs\/toc\/rap.12.2.html\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 12, Number 2<\/a>, Summer 2009<br \/>\npp. 167-194<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1353\/rap.0.0101\" target=\"_blank\">10.1353\/rap.0.0101<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/honors.uoregon.edu\/faculty\/david-frank\" target=\"_blank\">David A. Frank<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Rhetoric<br \/>\nRobert D. Clark Honors College<br \/>\n<em>University of Oregon<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Barack_Obama\" target=\"_blank\">Barack Obama&#8217;s<\/a> address of March 18, 2008, sought to quell the controversy sparked by YouTube clips of his pastor, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jeremiah_Wright\" target=\"_blank\">Jeremiah Wright<\/a> of the Trinity United Church of Christ, condemning values and actions of the United States government. In this address, Obama crosses over the color line with a rhetorical strategy designed to preserve his viability as a presidential candidate and in so doing, delivered a rhetorical masterpiece that advances the cause of racial dialogue and rapprochement. Because of his mixed racial heritage, he could bring perceptions and misperceptions in black and white &#8220;hush harbors&#8221; into the light of critical reason. The address succeeds, I argue, because Obama sounds the prophetic voice of Africentric theology that merges the Jewish and Christian faith traditions with African American experience, assumes theological consilience (that different religious traditions share a commitment to caring for others), and enacts the rhetorical counterpart to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Emmanuel_Levinas\" target=\"_blank\">Levinas&#8217;s<\/a> philosophy featuring the &#8220;face of the other.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack Obama&#8217;s &#8220;A More Perfect Union&#8221; Address, March 18, 2008 Rhetoric &amp; Public Affairs Volume 12, Number 2, Summer 2009 pp. 167-194 DOI: 10.1353\/rap.0.0101 David A. Frank, Professor of Rhetoric Robert D. Clark Honors College University of Oregon Barack Obama&#8217;s address of March 18, 2008, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,1196,8,6941,26,820,20],"tags":[10205,10206,10207],"class_list":["post-21993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-philosophy","category-politics","category-religion","category-usa","tag-david-a-frank","tag-david-frank","tag-rhetoric-public-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}