Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics

Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics explores how Black identity operates with/against ideas of difference in the age of #BlackLivesMatter, offering four Black rhetorics as antiracist means for rhetorical reclamation. It uses Black feminist relationality via an African indigenous approach to examine fluid, quotidian ways Black folk engage anti/racism at historically white institutions in response to violent campus spaces, educational structures, protest movements, and policy practice. The book challenges readers to ecologically understand shifting, multiple meanings of Blackness in knowledge-making and mobilizes generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 01 February 2021
Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics delves into the complexities of Blackness within white institutional spaces, particularly in the realm of education. In this thought-provoking book, Louis M. Maraj explores the interplay between Black identity and notions of difference in the era of #BlackLivesMatter. By centering Blackness through interdisciplinary Black feminist lenses, Black or Right poses the question of how racially signifying "diversity" in US higher education and beyond shapes meaning in everyday life.

The book offers four Black rhetorics as antiracist means for rhetorical reclamation, including autoethnography, hashtagging, inter(con)textual reading, and reconceptualized disruption. Through an African indigenous approach, Black or Right employs Black feminist relationality to reclaim knowledge from academic confinement. Maraj examines the fluid and quotidian ways in which Black individuals engage with anti/racism at historically white institutions in the United States, responding to violent campus spaces, educational structures, protest movements, and policy practices.

Black or Right adopts an experimental and creative style, challenging readers to ecologically understand the shifting, multifaceted meanings of Blackness in knowledge-making. Each chapter offers different vantage points, from the autoethnographer to the digital media scholar/pedagogue, cultural rhetorician, and critical discourse analyst, encouraging readers to engage with the text from multiple perspectives. The expressive form, organization, narratives, and poetics of the book intricately intertwine with its central argument that Black folk must continually invent "otherwise" in their iterative escape from oppressive white spaces.

By centering Black experiences, Black theory, and diasporic Blackness, Black or Right mobilizes generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness, in contrast to reparative attempts to "fix racism," which often paradoxically center whiteness. The book advocates for a more holistic and transformative approach to addressing racial inequality, emphasizing the need to challenge and dismantle systems of power and privilege.

Black or Right is a powerful and thought-provoking exploration of Blackness, identity, and antiracism in contemporary society. It offers valuable insights into the complexities of navigating racialized spaces and provides a framework for reimagining knowledge production and institutional practices.

Weight: 288g
Dimension: 152 x 230 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781646421466