Miami professor speaks on racism

Miami University of Ohio professor Mark McPhail spoke on "Race, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Innocence" Thursday in the Indiana Memorial Union. \nThe 19th annual J. Jeffery Auer Lecture in Political Communication, in honor of Auer, a former department chair of speech and theater, McPhail addressed the problem of racism and the practice of communication.\nMcPhail said he initiated his interest in the rhetoric of race in his doctoral dissertation, which he completed at the University of Massachusetts in 1987 and later developed into a book, published in 1994.\nDoctoral student Jeffrey Bennett introduced McPhail. He said many of McPhail's areas of academic interest and expertise, like racial rhetoric and Zen. \n"A very close friend of mine at the University of Utah told me the other night on the phone, (McPhail) is just kind of a cool guy," Bennett said.\nMcPhail began his lecture by quoting the namesake of the occasion, Auer. \n"I suspect that I was invited to Indiana University because my friends and colleagues here felt that I might have something interesting to say about, quote, 'the social and political discontents of our time,'" McPhail said. \nIn his lecture, McPhail challenged the effectiveness of modern rhetoric. He said, "Instead of attending to the words of those who have been demeaned and disenfranchised by racial and sexual privilege, the rhetoric of our time has largely discredited and disregarded their words.\n"We might view racism not as a black problem or as a white problem," McPhail said. "When I first started writing a book on race, people said to me, 'Oh, you're writing a book about black people and their problems.' And I discovered and soon said right away, 'No, I'm going to write about white people just as much as black people.' And in my studies I've looked at those of us who are white as a race. Most of us who are white don't even think of ourselves racially as much as black people do."\nHe also addressed the politics of innocence, as the title of his lecture suggested.\nMcPhail said white people do not want to think of themselves as racist or admit the history that has created a system of white power. \n"And one other thing I've discovered is that now, almost all white people say 'I'm clean," McPhail said. "'Don't blame me.'" \nMcPhail's earlier works address rhetoric as a possible cure for racism, but in ending his lecture Thursday he said, "Today I am less sure than I was a few years ago that any form of rhetoric can remedy…the problem of the color line. Indeed, I am beginning to wonder if race can be adequately addressed as a rhetorical problem at all."\nMcPhail said if the problem of racism is psychiatric, as has been suggested, rather than persuasive, that rhetoric might have no place in remedying the problem. For this reason he proposed that interracial friendships may be the best way to resolve racism, for this would serve as a therapy. \n "It was an important speech in that it confronted us with the claim that for further progress to be made on the problem of racism it will take the effort of European-Americans and more specifically will require that we unmask the rhetoric of white innocence," professor and Chairman of the Department of Communication and Culture Robert Ivie said. "He is saying that over the past couple of decades or so that European-Americans have begun to be complacent with minimal progress, and this is masking the racism of our time."\n Faculty, graduate students and undergraduates alike attended the lecture.\n"His speech was compelling and stimulating," senior Sidney Bosley said. "I have often thought of racism as partially a rhetorical problem, and McPhail now seems to be casting a shadow of doubt upon that idea."\nTo obtain a copy of McPhail's speech, contact Ivie at rivie@indiana.edu.