Enthymematic free space: the efficacy of anti-stop-and-frisk arguments in the face of racial prejudice

Abstract

Much scholarly energy has been invested in understanding how rhetors covertly invoke racial bias and how “color-blind” rhetoric produces unintended racist effects. Less scholarly attention has been paid to the unintended racist effects of anti-racist rhetoric. Anti-racist rhetors often present racial disparities in the criminal justice system to argue for reform, but psychological research suggests that such information can inspire audiences to support the status quo. To understand the rhetorical factors that contribute to such results, we analyze anti-stop-and-frisk literature produced by two New York advocacy organizations. These organizations employ racial disparity figures in enthymemes, defined by Aristotle as syllogisms that invite audiences to complete sometimes incompletely expressed lines of reasoning. Variations in which parts of an enthymeme are clearly or prominently stated influence the range of possible propositions that audiences can supply to fill in missing or obscured pieces—the enthymematic free space. Based on our analysis, we identify three sources of risky enthymematic free space involving racial disparities that allow audiences to employ their racial prejudices as premises in arguments against stop-and-frisk, consequently concluding the opposite of what is intended. We recommend three alternative argumentative strategies to reduce the risk of producing this unintended rhetorical result.

Keywords:

• Enthymeme
• anti-racism
• stop-and-frisk
• rhetorical risk
• audience reception

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Doug Cloud for his encouragement, support, and suggestions on multiple drafts of this article as well as the three anonymous reviewers for their close attention to the manuscript and generative recommendations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Aristotle’s discussion of the enthymeme is complex and perhaps not wholly consistent across his works, and his views have been the subject of much debate among modern rhetorical scholars (see Gaines 2000). While we interpret Aristotle’s (2007) enthymeme, based on his discussion in On Rhetoric, as a rhetorical syllogism in which the premises are based on a general audience’s opinions, it is not within the scope of this article to defend this definition as the “correct” one. However, we do believe that this definition is particularly helpful in investigating the argumentative features of advocacy literature concerning policies with racial implications, such as stop-and-frisk, and in seeing how those features might produce the opposite of the intended persuasive effect.

2 The concept of enthymematic free space is closely related to what Sally Jackson (1992) calls disagreement space: “[t]he entire complex of reconstructible commitments” “associated with the performance of a speech act” (261; see also van Eemeren et al. 1993). Enthymematic free space comprises a subset of the reconstructible commitments in any disagreement space, namely those surmised commitments that could fill in the missing or obscured pieces of an enthymeme. Both concepts identify propositions that are inferred by an audience. However, the concept of disagreement space concerns the disputational potential of a speech act, while our concept of free space concerns the interpretive potential of an enthymeme.

3 To be sure, when we discuss racial prejudices as premises, we are not only talking about propositional beliefs. As Walker (1994) contends, “The enthymeme… foregrounds an inferential and attitudinal complex, a stance; that invokes not only a premise (or warrant) as justification but a ‘chord’ of value-charged, emotively significant ideas to motivate a passional adherence or identification with its stance” (63). While for the purposes of analytical clarity we focus on those parts of racial prejudice that can be represented in propositional form, we acknowledge that audiences bring a complex of emotions, values, attitudes, and beliefs of differing intensity that can functionally serve as premises in enthymemes. Moreover, we concede that the intensity of an audience member’s prejudices can vary, further affecting enthymematic reasoning (Boss 1979, 25).

4 Our approach mirrors Mohammed’s (2019) method of reconstructing the argumentative potential of a statement as simultaneous discussions. The difference is that Mohammed is primarily interested in showing how a single discursive text can speak to multiple issues at once, while we are primarily interested in showing how a single discursive text can speak to multiple audiences at once. Of course, there is overlap as the differences between various audiences’ interpretations of the same argument stem from their concerns about different issues.

5 Except in one case (CCR 2012b), none of the fact sheets we analyzed had publication dates. We assume that each fact sheet uses the most recent data available and base our suppositions about publication dates accordingly.

6 This fact sheet contains two other supporting lines of reasoning that argue that stop-and-frisk policing is an ineffective means of reducing illegal firearms and that it has the counterproductive effects of violating civil rights and straining relations between police and the public. We do not include these lines of reasoning in our analysis because they do not explicitly concern race and because they are separate from arguments in the fact sheet that do concern race.

7 This fact sheet does include the following sentence: “The Community Safety Act is a first step toward ending discriminatory practices like stop-and-frisk.” That stop-and-frisk is a discriminatory practice is stated, but as a presupposition in a claim about the Community Safety Act. The NYCLU assumes that the audience will agree with the claim that stop-and-frisk is a discriminatory practice based on the racial disparity statistics it provides.

8 The other three panels comprise a separate supporting line of argument that stop-and-frisk policing is an ineffective means of removing contraband. We do not include these lines of reasoning in our analysis because they do not explicitly concern race and because they are parallel rather than directly linked to reasoning that does concern race in this fact sheet.

9 Smith’s (2014) racial identity also likely gives his argument a persuasive advantage.

10 Some readers might wonder whether our advice, given these examples, represents a form of “respectability politics,” which has been criticized as an ineffective capitulation to dominant group cultural norms. As Cohen (2010) explains, “This strategy for advancement is rooted in the belief that if black people can show themselves to be dignified, and as sharing the same values as white Americans, the white public will acknowledge black people’s humanity and equal status as citizens” (40). We believe our advice can be followed without falling prey to respectability politics. Moreover, we are recommending a specific argumentative strategy for a particular set of contexts, not a broader rhetorical philosophy for dismantling racism and achieving racial equality. To achieve these goals, we agree that arguments supporting the inherent dignity of people of color, regardless of social status, must be advanced. Nevertheless, rhetorically driven anti-racist argumentation raises significant ethical questions about accommodating audiences and whether the ends, which often can be a matter of life and death, justify the means.

11 We are essentially suggesting that rhetors expand their enthymemes into epicheiremes. Originally described by classical rhetoricians (Cicero 1976, 1.37.67–1.38.69; [Cicero] 1981, 2.18.27–2.19.30), epicheiremes go beyond basic syllogistic structure and supply additional reasons or evidence or restate or elaborate one or more of the propositions. According to Fahnestock (2011), epicheiremes “give [the argument] heft and salience for an audience” (399).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Camper

Martin Camper is Assistant Professor of Writing at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches composition, rhetoric, argumentation, speaking, and style. He researches rhetorical theory, the history of rhetoric, the rhetoric of religion, and textual interpretation. His first book, Arguing over Texts: The Rhetoric of Interpretation, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

Zach Fechter

Zach Fechter is a master’s student in Communication at the University of Texas at Austin specializing in Rhetoric and Language. His research interests include argument structure and audience interpretation, as well as the rhetorics of crime, political conservatism, and international relations, particularly those between China and the United States.