Irony in Charleston: Barack Obama’s Eulogy for Clementa C. Pinckney, June 26, 2015

Abstract

This article argues that Barack Obama deployed irony in conjunction with the African American rhetorical practice of signifyin(g) to eulogize Clementa Pinckney while addressing the June 2015 racially motivated killings of nine African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina. The engagement of irony and signifyin(g) constitutes a symbiotic theoretical exchange in which each frame functions independently but also operates in tandem to help Obama transform the tragedy into an opportunity for progress. In three successive stages, Obama exploits the interplay between these theoretical frames to create a new outlook on the shooting, expose structural forms of racism reinforced by whiteness, and chart a path forward for the nation’s journey to equality.

Keywords:

• Barack Obama
• Irony
• Post-Racism
• Signifyin(g)
• Whiteness

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Kyle Christensen, Matthew Thatcher, Chris Morse, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of the essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Frank and McPhail (2005) did not observe a doubled strategy in Obama’s discourse on race, but they undertook a doubled approach in rhetorical criticism in which they “write together separately” (p. 571) to analyze Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It is important to recognize a point of divergence in their conclusions. While Frank asserted that Obama’s approach might create a rhetorical framework needed to encourage interracial coalitions by recognizing the suffering of blacks and whites, McPhail argued that Obama reinforced a discourse of whiteness through its dominant rhetorical tropes: innocence, race neutrality, and positive self-presentation (p. 583).

2. While the attack on the Freedom Riders initially led to escalated violence in Birmingham and throughout the South, including the 16th Street Church bombing, which claimed the lives of four African American girls ranging from 11 to 14 years of age, the event heightened media reporting on issues of racial inequality and helped to set into motion the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As Bowers, Ochs, Jensen, and Schulz (2010) explained, “Birmingham without Connor, fire hoses, and police dogs would have been … less successful” in the grander narrative of civil rights and the ongoing pursuit of equality (p. 89).

3. Jacqueline Bacon has examined this practice extensively in her essay on the rhetoric of African American abolitionists. According to Bacon, Fredrick Douglass, in a letter to his former master, Thomas Auld, exploited an ironic tone of flattery and humility to condemn Auld and to call attention to the reversal of power enacted through signifyin(g). “Turning the tables on Auld,” she maintained, Douglass “ironically blames his former master for forcing him to adopt secrecy, inverting the stereotype of the naturally guileful slave” (Bacon, 1999, p. 275).

4. According to Gunn and McPhail (2015), Obama’s discourse in this moment worked to reaffirm what Charles Mills called the racial contract, or the idea that white citizens prosper and maintain their status in the social order at the expense and subjugation of African American communities and other populations of color (p. 18).

5. The responses from family members of the victims are summarized as follows: Anthony Thompson, whose relative Myra Thompson was killed, said, “I forgive you, my family forgives you … take this opportunity to repent … and you’ll be better off than you are right now” (Collins, 2015, para. 4). Bethane Middleton-Brown, who spoke on behalf of her deceased sister, told Roof, “We have no room for hate. We have to forgive. I pray God on your soul” (Collins, 2015, para. 28). Alana Simmons, who lost her grandfather, spoke of love’s ability to transcend hate: “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate—everyone’s plea for your soul is proof they lived in love and their legacies will live in love, so hate won’t win” (Collins, 2015, para. 9).

6. Future references to Obama’s speech will be made parenthetically by paragraph number as they appear on AmericanRhetoric.com.

7. Perhaps there is some irony in the fact that in the twilight of Obama’s presidential career, Henry Louis Gates’ theory of signifyin(g) would inform his strategy in addressing arguably the worst act of racial violence that occurred during his administration. In July 2009, less than a year after Obama took office, police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, arrested Gates outside his own home when responding to a report of a man breaking and entering. The incident, which spurred Obama to declare that the police “acted stupidly” for arresting the black harvard professor after a confrontation for trying to enter his own residence, was essentially the catalyst for Obama’s silence on race. After the news media criticized the president for overstepping his boundaries (Malcom, 2009; Seelye, 2009), Obama invited Gates and the arresting officer, Sergeant James Crowley, to meet with him over beers to clear the air in what came to be known as the “beer summit.” Although the meeting represented a symbolic gesture meant to offer respect to both parties, the underlying racial issue proved too contentious for Obama to address head on. Following the unsuccessful beer summit, which demonstrated the president’s refusal to “engage directly the crisis sweeping black America” (Glaude, 2017, p. 146), Obama “embarked upon an adventure in respectability politics” where he failed to advocate for African Americans across the remainder of his presidency (Douglas, 2016, para 13).