Racial rhetorical criticism is an approach to rhetorical criticism that was named by Lisa A. Flores in 2016. Racial rhetorical criticism organizes textual and cultural analysis around a recognition that racial oppression, histories, and logics shape communication and culture. [1] It also approaches the construction of race as a rhetorical process. [1] More recently, Flores has argued that racial rhetorical criticism also involves subjecting existing "rhetorical theories, methods, [and] practices" to a racially-informed analysis and "revise them" in a way that makes it less likely that scholars will avoid grappling with race. [2] As an example of this latter kind of racial rhetorical criticism, Flores references scholarship by rhetorical critics that supplements understanding of traditional rhetorical terms with analysis of how race shapes and complicates the meaning of these traditional rhetorical terms. [2] [3]
Although Flores named racial rhetorical criticism in 2016, Flores notes that scholarship in the area precedes her naming of the subfield. [1] Flores cites scholars such as Molefi Kete Asante, Kirt Wilson, Karma Chávez, and Bernadette Calafell, among others, as individuals who produced racial rhetorical criticism prior to 2016 [1] Flores and others have noted that the relative marginalization of racial rhetorical criticism despite its "abundance" attests to the racism built into rhetorical and communication studies. [4] [5]
Racial rhetorical criticism has become an influential framework in rhetorical and communication studies and was the subject of a forum dedicated to the issue published in the journal of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. [6]