Speaking of Race

It's easy to say that racism is wrong. But it's surprisingly hard to agree on what it is. Does a tired stereotype in your favorite movie make it racist? Does watching it anyway mean you're racist? Even among like-minded friends, such discussions can quickly escalate to hurt feelings all around--and when they do, we lose valuable opportunities to fight racism. Patricia Roberts-Miller is a scholar of rhetoric--the art of understanding misunderstandings. In Speaking of Race , she explains why the subject is a "third rail" and how we can do better: We can acknowledge that, in a racist society, racism is not the sole provenance of "bad people." We can focus on the harm it causes rather than the intent of offenders. And, when someone illuminates our own racist blind spots, we can take it not as a criticism, but as a kindness--and an opportunity to learn and to become less racist ourselves.

Patricia Roberts-Miller, PhD, is a professor of rhetoric and writing and director of the University Writing Center atUniversity of Texas at Austin. She has been teaching the subject of demagoguery since 2002 and is also the author of Voices in the Wilderness, Deliberate Conflict, Fanatical Schemes and Rhetoric and Demagoguery. She lives in Texas.

From a scholar of communication comes a guide to healing our fractured discourse on race and racism by infusing thetopic with more constructive and enriching dialogue.It's happened to virtually all of us: Someone calls something "racist" and you're not sure you agree. (Or someone calls you racist, and you definitely don't agree.) But before you say anything - before the argument escalates, as it almost always does, leaving everyone upset - professor of rhetoric Patricia Roberts-Miller would like to talk to you about how we talk about race.Roberts-Miller believes that these potentially explosive conversations are, in fact, opportunities to bring us together - if we have them constructively. In this concise, pocket-sized guide, she explains exactly how to do so: Rather than fall into the all-too-common traps of discussing personal identity, intentions, and emotions, we need to keep focused on actions. We can't assume that everyone has the same idea of racism - they don't - and so, Roberts-Miller provides a helpful working definition. In short, Speaking of Race teaches us to talk about racism the way an expert of rhetoric does. We may find that it makes our polarised world more eloquent - and less racist.

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