Naming, blaming, and “Framing”: Kimberlé Crenshaw and the rhetoric of Black feminist pedagogy

ABSTRACT

This article examines Kimberlé Crenshaw’s interview on Democracy Now! in 2015 and her 2016 TEDTalk, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” to theorize Black women’s “activist rhetoric of blame.” Crenshaw enacts three distinctive features of Black feminist pedagogy in her activism for the #SayHerName Campaign. She challenges traditional “frames” of antiBlack police brutality, uses blaming vocabulary from a Black woman’s standpoint to create new frames, and names an audiences’ “revolutionary potential” in dismantling misogynoir in the justice system. An activist rhetoric of blame expands frames in dominant discourses so that the collective blame toward an institution can encompass intersectional oppression.

KEYWORDS:

• Epideictic rhetoric
• black feminist pedagogy
• intersectionality
• police violence and blame

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” filmed October 2016 at TEDWoman, San Francisco, CA. Video, 8:29–8:33. https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality?language=en

2 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, And Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review. 43 (1990): 1265.

3 Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Frances Garrett, and Martinez Sutton, “Say Her Name: Families Seek Justice in Overlooked Police Killings of African-American Women,” Interview by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!, May 20, 2015. New York City, NY. Video, 29:00. https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2015/5/20; Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality.”

4 Moya Bailey and Trudy, “On Misogynoir: Citation, Erasure, And Plagiarism,” Feminist Media Studies 18, no. 4 (2018): 762–768.

5 Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, ed. Gisela Striker, trans. John Henry Freese (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020), 33.

6 Ilon Lauer, “Epideictic Rhetoric,” Communication Research Trends 34, no. 2 (2015): 11.

7 Lauer, “Epideictic Rhetoric,” 5.; Kathryn M. Olson, “An Epideictic Dimension of Symbolic Violence in Disney’s Beauty and The Beast: Inter-Generational Lessons in Romanticizing and Tolerating Intimate Partner Violence,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 99, no. 4 (2013): 461; Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 53; Celeste Michelle Condit, “The Functions of Epideictic: The Boston Massacre Orations as Exemplar,” Communication Quarterly 33, no. 4 (1985): 289.

8 Clarke Rountree, “The (Almost) Blameless Genre of Classical Greek Epideictic,” Rhetorica 19, no. 3 (2001): 293; George A. Kennedy, Aristotle on Rhetoric (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1–6.

9 Lauer, “Epideictic Rhetoric,” 9; Danny Rodriguez, “Reclaiming Malcolm X: Epideictic Discourse and African-American Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review 40, no. 2 (2021): 160; Elizabethada A. Wright, “The Caprices of an Undisciplined Fancy: Using Blame to Negotiate the “betweens” of Ethos via the Epideictic,” Rhetoric Review 38, no. 3(2019): 271–273.

10 Olga Idriss Davis, "A Black Woman as Rhetorical Critic: Validating Self and Violating The Space Of Otherness.” Women's Studies in Communication 21, no. 1 (1998): 77–90.

11 Shardé M. Davis, “The “Strong Black Woman Collective”: A Developing Theoretical Framework for Understanding Collective Communication Practices Of Black Women.” Women's Studies in Communication 38, no. 1 (2015): 26.

12 Ersula J. Ore, Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2019), 21; Charles L. Griswold, and Stephen S. Griswold, “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and The Washington Mall: Philosophical Thoughts on Political Iconography,” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 4 (1986): 689.

13 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 55.

14 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1974); Robert M. Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” Journal of Communication 43, no.4 (1993): 51–58.

15 Gloria Joseph, “Black Feminist Pedagogy and Schooling in Capitalist White America,” In Bowles and Gintes Revisited: Correspondence and Contradiction in Educational Theory, edited by Mike Cole. (New York: Falmer, 1988), 180.

16 Jeremy Engels, “Uncivil Speech: Invective and The Rhetorics of Democracy in The Early Republic.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 95, no. 3(2009): 311–334; Judi Atkins, ““Strangers in their own Country”: Epideictic Rhetoric and Communal Definition in Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech.” The Political Quarterly 89, no. 3 (2018): 362–369.

17 Wright, “The Caprices of an Undisciplined Fancy,” 271–273.

18 Wright, “The Caprices of an Undisciplined Fancy,” 274.

19 Allison M. Prasch, “Obama in Selma: Deixis, Rhetorical Vision, And The “True Meaning of America,”” Quarterly Journal of Speech 105, no. 1 (2019): 42–67; Philip Dalton, “Blame, Shame, And Race Terror: A Case Study Examining the Limits of Blame Epideictic,” Argumentation & Advocacy 56, no. 2 (2020):18; Bradford J. Vivian, “Up From Memory: Epideictic Forgetting In Booker T. Washington's Cotton States Exposition Address.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 45, no. 2 (2012): 189–212.

20 Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (New York Age Print, 1892), 7.

21 Mary Church Terrell, “Lynching from a Negro's Point of View,” North American Review 178, (1904): 861.

22 Maegan Parker Brooks, and Davis W. Houck, eds. The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer Fannie Lou Hamer, “Testimony Before the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention” in The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is, edited by Maegan Parker Brooks, and Davis W. Houck (University Press of Mississippi, 2011), 45.

23 Deborah F. Atwater, African American Women’s Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor (Lexington Books, 2009), 81.

24 Angela Davis, Women, Race & Class (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1983).

25 Shirley Wilson Logan, We Are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999).

26 Logan, We Are Coming, 135.

27 bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as The Practice of Freedom (New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), 123.

28 Evelyn Higginbotham, “Designing an Inclusive Curriculum: Bringing All Women into The Core.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 18, no.1/2: 7–23.

29 Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 11–12.

30 Collins, Black Feminist Thought.

31 Joseph, “Black Feminist Pedagogy and Schooling in Capitalist White America,” 177.

32 Monique Lane, “Reclaiming Our Queendom: Black Feminist Pedagogy and The Identity Formation of African American Girls.” Equity & Excellence in Education 50, no. 1 (2017): 13–24; Townes, Emilie M. In A Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Joyce E. King and Carolyn Mitchell, Black Mothers to Sons (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).

33 Brittney Cooper, Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women. Women, Gender, and Sexuality (American History. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 38.

34 Joseph, “Black Feminist Pedagogy and Schooling in Capitalist White America,” 177.

35 Columbia Law School, “Kimberle W. Crenshaw.” Accessed March 16, 2021. https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw.

36 Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Priscilla Ocen, and Jyoti Nanda., and Nanda, J, “Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected.” African American Policy Forum. https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3227/

37 Crenshaw, Ocen, and Jyoti, “Black Girls Matter,” 44.

38 Crenshaw, Ocen, and Jyoti, “Black Girls Matter,” 17.

39 Barbara Omolade, “A Black Feminist Pedagogy,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 15, no.3/4(1987): 32.

40 Ashley R. Hall, “Slippin’in and Out Of Frame: An Afrafuturist Feminist Orientation To Black Women And American Citizenship,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 106, no. 3 (2020): 343.

41 Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, (1989): 139-168.

42 Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” 140.

43 Lori D. Patton, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Chayla Haynes, and Terri N. Watson, “Why We Can’t Wait:(Re) Examining the Opportunities and Challenges for Black Women And Girls In Education (Guest Editorial).” The Journal of Negro Education 85, no. 3 (2016): 194–198; Crenshaw, Ocen, and Nanda, “Black Girls Matter;” Crenshaw and Ritchie, “Say Her Name.”

44 Joseph, “Black Feminist Pedagogy and Schooling in Capitalist White America,” 180.

45 Collins, Black Feminist Thought (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 204.

46 Annette Henry, “Chapter Four: Black Feminist Pedagogy: Critiques and Contributions.” Counterpoints 237, (2005): 91.

47 Omolade, “A Black Feminist Pedagogy,” 38.

48 Joseph, “Black Feminist Pedagogy,” 180.

49 Tiffany M. Nyachae, “Complicated Contradictions Amid Black Feminism and Millennial Black Women Teachers Creating Curriculum for Black Girls,” Gender and Education 28, no. 6 (2016): 792.

50 Democracy Now! “About.” Democracy Now! Accessed August 11, 2021, https://www.democracynow.org/about

51 Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Andrea J. Ritchie, “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,” Accessed May 17, 2020.

52 Pat Michelle, “TEDWomen 2016 Speaker Lineup Announced!” TED Blog accessed February 28, 2021, https://blog.ted.com/tedwomen-2016-speaker-lineup-announced/

53 TED, “Conferences” Accessed January 23, 2023, https://www.ted.com/attend/conferences

54 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality.”; TED, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” YouTube video, 18:49, December 7, 2016.

55 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 30:45–30:55.

56 Frank Edwards, Lee Hedwig, and Michael Esposito, “Risk of Being Killed by Police Use of Force in the United States by Age, Race–Ethnicity, and Sex.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 34 (2019): 16793–16798.

57 Donald Cunnigen and Marino A. Bruce, Race in the Age of Obama. (version 1st edition) Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, 16.

58 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 32:30–32:44.

59 Davis, Women, Race, & Class; Tarana Burke, “’Me Too’ Founder Tarana Burke Says Black Girls’ Trauma Shouldn’t Be Ignored,” interview by Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR, September 29, 2021, audio, 44, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1041362145; Brittney Cooper, “Why Are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage Over Police Violence?” TIME, June 4, 2020, https://time.com/5847970/police-brutality-black-women-girls/

60 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton interview with Democracy Now!, 31:01–31:14.

61 Michele Foster, “Using Call-And-Response to Facilitate Language Mastery And Literacy Acquisition Among African American Students,” (Washington D.C.: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, 2002), 1–2.

62 Keith Gilyard and Adam J. Banks. On African-American Rhetoric (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 48–49.

63 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 00:04-01:33.

64 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 01:45-1:59.

65 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 01:59-02:05.

66 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 02:49–02:53.

67 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 02:21–02:48.

68 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 03:02–03:07.

69 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 03:17–03:25.

70 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 03:37–03:53.

71 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 03:39–04:01.

72 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 37:30–37:40.

73 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 38:18–38:39.

74 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 38:49–39:03.

75 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 48:46–49:03.

76 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 47:01–47:13.

77 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 44:35–44:47.

78 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 31:15–31:32.

79 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 10:46–11:42.

80 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 04:23–04:36.

81 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 04:45–04:54.

82 African American Policy Forum “#SAYHERNAME African American Policy Forum Black Women Are Killed BY Police Too,” https://www.aapf.org/sayhername.

83 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 31:41–31:53

84 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 49:46–49:55.

85 Crenshaw, Garrett, and Sutton, interview with Democracy Now!, 48:34–48:49.

86 Crenshaw, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” 14:24–14:53.

87 Bradford Vivian, Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, And Public Culture (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 24.

88 Cynthia Miecznikowski Sheard, “The Public Value of Epideictic Rhetoric,” College English 58, no.7 (1996): 769–770.

89 Karma R. Chávez, “Beyond Inclusion: Rethinking Rhetoric's Historical Narrative,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 101, no. 1 (2015): 162–172.

90 Sheard, “The Public Value of Epideictic Rhetoric,” 766.