"what is to be done?"*

This is the question that has in one form or another guided my life and research for more than four decades, and one which both theoretical and historical evidence indicates cannot be addressed through traditional rhetorical means.  

     Four more than four decades I have taught, researched and written about the rhetoric of racism while working in institutions of higher education across this country.    In my first book, The Rhetoric of Racism, I believed  that, as a problem of ignorance,  racism could be addressed through education.  In The Rhetoric of Racism Revisited, I developed and refined the theories of complicity and coherence that defined my early work, and drew far less hopeful conclusions regarding the possibilities of language to reconcile or rectify racism.  The book's subtitle speaks directly to my conclusions:  Reparations or Separation?

     Complicity theory predicted the latter, and in the two decades since Revisited was written, 

that prediction has proven remarkably accurate;  anticipating the emergence of identity group fragmentation and conflict and documenting the reinforcement of racial divisions and anxieties in both the Obama and Trump administrations.  The failure of the dominant rhetorical institutions of law, politics and education to address or ameliorate racial disparities and injustices, and the resurgence of state sanctioned discrimination and violence clearly point to 

an intentional reinforcement of the basic beliefs at the roots of racism:  racial supremacy, superiority and privilege.

       Albert Einstein offers the only coherent response to the rhetoric of racism:  "I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out.“   Einstein's wisdom is the motivating impulse behind Race Talk: ( /rās/ /tôk/), a forum for informed discussions of the rhetoric of racism, and its consequences for our nation and the world.  Be part of the conversation