{"title":"The whiteness of LBJ’s rhetoric: The appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission","authors":"J. Izaguirre","doi":"10.1080/00335630.2022.2149846","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article presents a racial rhetorical critique of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential rhetoric. Drawing from examinations of drafts, memos, and proclamations, I argue that LBJ in particular and the administration more generally utilized the appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and his naming as the chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican American Affairs (IACMAA) on June 9, 1967 to reinforce the predominance of the white racial frame in U.S. political life. I highlight how LBJ’s administration relocated “Mexican Americans” politically within his Great Society according to the premises of the white racial frame as Chicana/o movement activism turned toward amplifying separatist, racially charged rhetoric(s). This racially tuned revision of prior rhetorical histories of LBJ’s rhetorics demonstrates how his administration participated in sustaining white supremacy, fashioned a whitened image of “Mexican American” communities capable of flourishing in his “Great Society,” and excluded alternative political forms that challenged the assimilationism typically expected of Latinx communities more generally. I conclude that fomenting the political status of the white racial frame was integral to LBJ’s Great Society rhetoric and to evolutions in Chicana/o activism in the late 1960s.","PeriodicalId":51545,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Speech","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quarterly Journal of Speech","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2022.2149846","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT This article presents a racial rhetorical critique of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential rhetoric. Drawing from examinations of drafts, memos, and proclamations, I argue that LBJ in particular and the administration more generally utilized the appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and his naming as the chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican American Affairs (IACMAA) on June 9, 1967 to reinforce the predominance of the white racial frame in U.S. political life. I highlight how LBJ’s administration relocated “Mexican Americans” politically within his Great Society according to the premises of the white racial frame as Chicana/o movement activism turned toward amplifying separatist, racially charged rhetoric(s). This racially tuned revision of prior rhetorical histories of LBJ’s rhetorics demonstrates how his administration participated in sustaining white supremacy, fashioned a whitened image of “Mexican American” communities capable of flourishing in his “Great Society,” and excluded alternative political forms that challenged the assimilationism typically expected of Latinx communities more generally. I conclude that fomenting the political status of the white racial frame was integral to LBJ’s Great Society rhetoric and to evolutions in Chicana/o activism in the late 1960s.
本文对林登·约翰逊的总统言论进行了种族主义修辞批判。根据对草案、备忘录和公告的审查,我认为约翰逊总统和政府更普遍地利用了1967年6月9日任命Vicente T. Ximenes为平等就业机会委员会(EEOC)成员,并任命他为墨西哥裔美国人事务机构间委员会(IACMAA)主席,以加强白人种族框架在美国政治生活中的主导地位。我强调约翰逊政府是如何根据白人种族框架的前提,在他的“伟大社会”中政治地重新安置“墨西哥裔美国人”的,因为墨西哥裔美国人运动的激进主义转向了放大分离主义,种族主义的言论。这一种族主义调整的修正表明了他的政府是如何参与维持白人至上主义的,塑造了一个能够在他的“伟大社会”中蓬勃发展的“墨西哥裔美国人”社区的白人形象,并排除了挑战拉丁裔社区通常期望的同化主义的其他政治形式。我的结论是,煽动白人种族框架的政治地位是约翰逊伟大社会言论和20世纪60年代末墨西哥裔/黑人激进主义演变的组成部分。
期刊介绍:
The Quarterly Journal of Speech (QJS) publishes articles and book reviews of interest to those who take a rhetorical perspective on the texts, discourses, and cultural practices by which public beliefs and identities are constituted, empowered, and enacted. Rhetorical scholarship now cuts across many different intellectual, disciplinary, and political vectors, and QJS seeks to honor and address the interanimating effects of such differences. No single project, whether modern or postmodern in its orientation, or local, national, or global in its scope, can suffice as the sole locus of rhetorical practice, knowledge and understanding.