Demonstrating without demands: re-articulating the black populist subject within the post-racial mystique

ABSTRACT

The recent groundswell of American social protest illuminates the neoliberal constraints on constructing a people in the twenty-first century. Perhaps no one has better helped facilitate such discussion than Ernesto Laclau in his later work on populist reason. Here, I utilize Laclau's concept of the social demand to examine the rhetorical formation of Black Lives Matter within the cultural context of the post-racial mystique. Whereas Laclau argues concrete struggles transform into popular demands (metonymy), combining with other struggles to form a popular identity (metaphor), I argue Black Lives Matter illustrates an alternative model in which juxtaposition (irony), not popular demand, functions as the quilting point of rhetorical formation. Accordingly, the movement articulates its populist identity by subverting logics of racial equality through the rhetoric of irony.

KEYWORDS:

• Articulation
• Black Lives Matter
• Ernesto Laclau
• irony
• social protest rhetoric

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Katie Langford and the blind reviewers for their valuable insights and supportive feedback throughout this process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I retrieved the identified slogans from a combination of sources including ABC News.Go, which features the webpage: Black Lives Matter: A Movement in Photos; the Black Lives Matter website, and Google images.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Marinelli

Kevin Marinelli is Visiting Assitant Professor of Rhetoric in the Communication Studies Department at Davidson College and Chair of the Rhetoric and Public Address Division for the Southern States Communication Association.