This essay argues that racial performance in high fashion functions as a disciplinary visual rhetoric which severely constrains objections to the myth of postraciality and enables claims that race is no longer a meaningful category of analysis. Racial performances limit the rhetorical agency of marginalized groups in two ways: They reduce racial identity to a mere accessory and they frame racial interaction as a short-lived tourist encounter. Treating race as an accessory equates Black and White bodies, creating an illusion of equality, while fashion tourism reduces race to spectacle at the expense of the voices of marginalized groups. Racechange in high fashion thus functions as part of a postracial ''common sense'' that limits the rhetorical agency of persons of color.
In this essay, we describe the protest cycle that begins when scholars from the margins make demands on an institution or on the discipline for changes to ameliorate structural inequalities and offer two interventions related to the gridlock described above. First, we chart the patronage dynamic that produces pathological economies of liberal reform in the field of rhetoric. And second, we present possible solutions to break those cycles to produce a more equitable academic culture. We ultimately argue for divesting from cis-hetero whiteness and masculinity, particularly as it is sedimented in the distributed academic property rights through which white scholars retain control over disciplinary boundaries, publication decisions, faculty hiring, and tenure and promotion.
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