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Color-Blind Stancetaking in Racialized Discourse

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Color-Blind Stancetaking in Racialized Discourse University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2017 Color-Blind Stancetaking in Racialized Discourse Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the African American Studies Commons, Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons, Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Tobias-Lauerman, Abigail Christine, "Color-Blind Stancetaking in Racialized Discourse. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2017. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/4785 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman entitled "Color- Blind Stancetaking in Racialized Discourse." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Jessi Grieser, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Lisa King, Martin Griffin Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Color-Blind Stancetaking in Racialized Discourse A Thesis Presented for the Master of Arts Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman May 2017 ii ABSTRACT In this thesis, I examine how language constructs and constrains racialized discourse in post-Jim Crow contemporary America. Drawing on rhetorical and sociolinguistic work set forth by Booth, Shotwell, Bonilla-Silva, Omi and Winant, and others, it is apparent that racial organization— and racial identities and categorization— in the US is reliant upon specific markers that signify racial meaning. Such markers are assimilated into wider, unconscious discourse through what Shotwell and Booth describe as seemingly inherent— yet ultimately constructed— matters of “common sense,” and are expressed through evaluative stance acts. I explore the origins and construction of these markers and the relationship between color-blind racism and language through the framework of Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus/doxa schema. Bourdieu illuminates the ways current racial language denies self-reflexivity, instead maintaining its own survival by way of “common sense.” To apply these principles, I analyze four public statements made during the 2006 racially-charged “Jena Six” situation in Louisiana— two who are critical of the Jena Six, and two who are in support of them— as the Jena Six case, trial, and surrounding public response provide numerous points of comparison to more recent racialized events. To analyze the four statements, I apply five rhetorical “rules” that I develop from Bonilla-Silva’s definitions of color-blind language, and I look at the ways in which the logic within each statement is mediated through a “common sense” racial knowledge and expressed through stancetaking. What is observed in the two statements that are critical of the Jena Six is a unified yet flexible system of racial thought that works to preserve current racial conditions, while the two statements made in support of the Six utilize language and logic that suggest avenues for boundary-breaking in regards to available racial language and subsequent racial realities. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 Crime and Public Perception ............................................................................................. 3 Racial Disparities in Drug Crime Enforcement ..................................................... 4 Race and Violent Crime ......................................................................................... 5 Perceptions of Black Criminality ............................................................... 6 Contemporary Parallels ...................................................................................................... 8 Technological Changes .......................................................................................... 8 Generational Shifts ............................................................................................... 11 Why the Jena Six? ............................................................................................................ 13 Outline of Research .......................................................................................................... 14 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................ 16 Symbolic Language and Value ........................................................................................ 16 Race as Linguistic Construct ........................................................................................... 19 Historical Constructions of Race ......................................................................... 19 Durability and Artificiality of Race ..................................................................... 22 Language and Race .......................................................................................................... 23 Color-Blind Racism ............................................................................................. 23 Color-Blind Language ......................................................................................... 28 Color-Blind Language and Implicit Knowledge ............................................................. 31 Common Sense .................................................................................................... 34 Bourdieu’s Habitus .............................................................................................. 36 Bourdieu’s Field .................................................................................................. 38 Bourdieu and Racial Common Sense .............................................................................. 40 Race and Common Sense .................................................................................... 42 The Habitus of Race ............................................................................................ 43 Who Gets Served by the “Common Sense” of Racial Systems? ............. 45 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 46 Stancetaking in Color-Blind Language ............................................................................ 47 What is Stance? .................................................................................................... 48 Positioning Theory ............................................................................................... 50 Contemporary Stance Theory .............................................................................. 52 Stance and Color-Blindness ................................................................................. 55 III. METHODS ............................................................................................................................ 58 Historical Background ..................................................................................................... 58 Racial Disparity in the Legal System .................................................................. 63 Reception in Jena ................................................................................................. 66 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 69 Color-Blind Language ......................................................................................... 70 Analysis Source ................................................................................................... 78 Transcription Methods ............................................................................. 79 IV. ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 81 Negatively-Aligned Speakers .......................................................................................... 81 Caller 1 ................................................................................................................. 81 iv Caller 2 ................................................................................................................. 91 Sharpton, Jackson, and Duke Lacrosse .................................................... 94 Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 101 Positively-Aligned Speakers .......................................................................................... 101 Caller 3 ............................................................................................................... 102
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