{"id":24799,"date":"2012-08-17T00:42:49","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T00:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=24799"},"modified":"2012-08-17T00:43:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T00:43:29","slug":"barack-obamas-address-to-the-2004-democratic-national-convention-trauma-compromise-consilience-and-the-impossibility-of-racial-reconciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=24799","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: Trauma, Compromise, Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: Trauma, Compromise, Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconciliation<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rhetoric & Public Affairs<\/a>
\nVolume 8, Number 4, Winter 2005<\/a>
\npages 571-593
\nDOI: 10.1353\/rap.2006.0006<\/a><\/p>\n

David A. Frank<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Rhetoric
\nRobert D. Clark Honors College
\nUniversity of Oregon<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Lawrence McPhail<\/a><\/strong>, Dean of The College of Arts & Communication
\nUniversity of Wisconsin, Whitewater<\/em><\/p>\n

The two authors of this article offer alternative readings of Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> July 27, 2004, address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention (DNC) as an experiment in interracial collaborative rhetorical criticism, one in which they \u201cwrite together separately.\u201d David A. Frank judges Obama\u2019s speech a prophetic effort advancing the cause of racial healing. Mark Lawrence McPhail finds Obama\u2019s speech, particularly when it is compared to Reverend Al Sharpton\u2019s<\/a> DNC speech of July 28, 2004, an old vision of racelessness. Despite their different readings of Obama\u2019s address, both authors conclude that rhetorical scholars have an important role to play in cultivating a climate of racial reconciliation.<\/p>\n

…Using an approach similar to that of Forde-Mazrui<\/a>, Obama’s speech drew from his multiracial background to craft a speech designed to bridge the divides between and among ethnic groups. He writes in his moving autobiography, Dreams from My Father<\/a><\/em>, “I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.” Coherence, Obama writes, is a function of translation and the capacity to move between and among worlds. He was repulsed by whites who used racist language, and could not use the phrase “white folks” as a synonym for bigot as it was undercut by the memories of the love and nonracist impulses of his white mother and grandfather. His speech at the convention reflects, as McPhail notes, an ability to integrate competing visions of reality. Obama did so by using a rhetorical strategy of consiliencey<\/a><\/em> where understanding results through translation, mediation, and an embrace of different languages, values, and traditions. This embrace was intended to inspire a “jumping together” to common principles…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: Trauma, Compromise, Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconciliation Rhetoric & Public Affairs Volume 8, Number 4, Winter 2005 pages 571-593 DOI: 10.1353\/rap.2006.0006 David A. Frank, Professor of Rhetoric Robert D. Clark Honors College University of Oregon Mark Lawrence McPhail, Dean of The College of Arts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,8413,1196,8,26,20],"tags":[10205,10206,11559,11558,11560,10207],"class_list":["post-24799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-communications","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-david-a-frank","tag-david-frank","tag-mark-l-mcphail","tag-mark-lawrence-mcphail","tag-mark-mcphail","tag-rhetoric-public-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24799","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=24799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}