“You know it when you see it:” The rhetorical hierarchy of race and gender inRhinelander v. Rhinelander

No Room for Racism

“…Carlson's (1999) essay about the shifting definition of Black identity argued that race operates within a ''specific rhetorical community.'' She urged critics to examine how race functions depending on the context: individuals and groups can construct how race is understood through language and association.…”

The State of the Art in Feminist Scholarship in Communication

“…This is not to say that contemporary feminism is untouched or uninfluenced by contemporary theory, especially contemporary feminist theories. There is a growing influx of postcolonialist and globalist theoretical orientations (Diaz, 2003;Durham, 2001;Hegde, 1999;McKinley & Jensen, 2003;Parameswaran, 1999;Ram, 2002), as well as influence from womanist theory and critical race theory (Behling, 2002;Carlson, 1999;Hamlet, 2000;Ono & Buescher, 2001). We found echoes of poststructuralist theory in several critical pieces (e.g., Dow, 2001;Lay, 2003;Rockler, 2001;Sloop, 2000;Townsley & Geist, 2000), and several essays also engaged the various understandings of "Third Wave" feminism (Diaz, 2003;Hogeland, 2001;Lotz, 2003;Shugart, 2001;Shugart, Egley, & Hallstein, 2001).…”

“…Although understandings of the complexities of the different axes of oppression constituted by race and gender have already begun to influence feminist scholarship (e.g. Behling, 2002;Bird, 1999;Bowers & Buzzanell, 2002;Carlson, 1999;Houston, 2000;Ono & Buescher, 2001;Ott & Aoki, 2001;Rodriguez, 2001), it has yet to pervade organizational and personal communicative structures in the academy.…”

Critical Legal Theorizing, Rhetorical Intersectionalities, and the Multiple Transgressions of the “Tragic Mulatta,” Anastasie Desarzant

“…The se types of rem arks underscored the importance of co mmunal percept ions and the inescapable power of black blood. Carlson ( 1999 ) has recently written about the nexu s that exists betwe en bodily mar king s and racial identiti es, and in this particul ar case the defen se attorneys seemed to be confident that the Loui siana court s were goi ng to decide that Desarzant 's outward appearance co uldn' t hide her hidden racial origins. Th e use of the other rhetorical strateg ies helped with the overall contextualization of the case, but when push cam e to shove, the defen se foc used attent ion on the archival record s that purp ortedly provided hered itary and geog raphica l evidence of the plaint iff 's "pedigree ."…”

“…The participants, audiences , and readers who learned about the details of these antebellum trials were performers engage d in the perpetu ation of potent racialized logics (Gross, 1998, p. 181). Carlson ( 1999) has recently written about some of the discur sive and non-di scur sive markers that were used in some of these judicial contests over one's racial classification, and these lega l contests served a variety of different functions. These co urtroo m dramas allowed litigants to talk about their self-identities, and they also enabled viewe rs to co mment on how co mplexion defined and circ umscribed a person 's place in the co mplex registries of stratified New Orleans societies (Zac kodnik,200 I,p.…”