This essay presents a theory of rhetorical decay, a rhetorical state that results from argumentative gestures that “derail” and suppress productive discourse (i.e., exchanges that produce new understandings, consensus, or “legitimate dissensus” between members of a public). Reviewing works from critical race studies, rhetorical criticism, and feminist rhetorical studies, the author identifies several individual preexisting concepts that can be classified as individual rhetorical decay–fostering practices. However, a gap remains in theorizing the larger category and understanding the outcomes of such rhetorics; this essay intervenes in this space by creating the metatheory of rhetorical decay, characterizing the family of gestures, examining affiliate concepts, providing an example of rhetorical decay in a contemporary public argument (over lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender marriage), and identifying precedents for mitigating such practices.

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.