SMC Author

Scott Schönfeldt-Aultman

SMC Affiliated Work

1

Status

Faculty

School

School of Liberal Arts

Department

Communication

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Publication / Conference / Sponsorship

Critical Race and Whiteness Studies

Description/Abstract

This essay explores the rhetorical strategies employed when whiteness is challenged, questioned, or attacked and when whiteness is defended. It uses as a basis letters to the editor of a North American-based South African newsletter, JULUKA. The analysis suggests that when whiteness is critiqued, several rhetorical manoeuvres emerge-retaliatory rhetorical attacks, defensive rhetorical posturing, and rhetorical reversing/shifting of the critique. In JULUKA, these rhetorical responses, ultimately, limit the newsletter's ability to be, consistently, what it desires-a publication marked by a genuinely diverse exchange of ideas. By extension, one might argue that predominantly white spaces desirous of diversity and dialogue, particularly published venues, require constructive interventions and strategies to achieve such an environment.

Keywords

defensiveness, expatriate discourse, rhetorical strategies, South African, whiteness

Scholarly

yes

Volume

11

Issue

1

First Page

1

Last Page

22

Disciplines

Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication

Rights

Open Access. Author Manuscript. Author permission to post in Saint Mary’s Digital Commons

Comments

Other keywords:

  • Racial Identity Of Whites

  • Racism

  • Rhetorical Analysis

  • Defensiveness (Psychology)

  • Differences

  • Multiculturalism

  • Democracy

Original Citation

Schönfeldt-Aultman, S. M. (2015). Whiteness Attacked, Whiteness Defended: White South African Rhetorics of Race in JULUKA Newsletter. Critical Race & Whiteness Studies, 11(1), 1.

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