Rhetoric Review Oct 2018

“I Can’t Breathe”: Eric Garner and In/Out-Group Rhetorics

Holly Fulton-Babicke Arizona State University

Abstract

This article analyzes several popular news media narratives that describe the events surrounding Eric Garner’s death in 2014, including the circumstances of his arrest and the acquittal of the police officer who placed him in a banned chokehold. This piece problematizes the constraints that vernacular understandings of race impose upon verbal and embodied rhetorical agency. Ultimately, this work illuminates the ways in which color-blind racist rhetorics mobilize narrative proxies to render these constraints invisible.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2018-10-02
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2018.1497888
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Topics
modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism disability studies body and rhetoric
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