White Americans and the Death of Rhetoric

Rep. Justin J. Pearson
(campaign photo)

When the pastor approached me after my first time attending an African Methodist Episcopal church service, he didn’t address me in his “pulpit voice.” Though still wearing his liturgical robes, and a sheen of sweat still visible from his aerobic ministerial performance, he nevertheless spoke to me in measured, even tones, like the college-educated professional he is. He expressed genuine avuncular curiosity at my White presence in his Black church.

Before this encounter, I had book-learning awareness of Black religious tradition. I’d seen enough video recordings of Dr. King to know that he didn’t always speak with the heightened bluster he demonstrated at the March on Washington. But there’s something different when sitting in the pews, watching and listening as the pastor modulates his tone. The rise and fall aren’t incidental; the pastor, you soon realize, is leading you on a journey.

Late last week, an edited video emerged of Tennessee State Representative Justin J. Pearson. After the Shelby County Board of Supervisors unanimously reappointed Rep. Pearson to the House of Representatives, reversing spectacularly partisan expulsion from that house, the Representative, little known outside his Memphis district, suddenly became a national figure. And his personal history became subject to tedious media scrutiny.

The video spliced together two moments in Pearson’s life. As a 21-year-old undergraduate at Bowdoin College, Pearson ran for student government. His campaign video shows Pearson with close-cropped hair and a charcoal suit, speaking softly and gesturing directly into a camera. Then a jump-cut leads to Pearson, now 28 and sporting a prominent Afro, shouting with a revival preacher’s gusto during the week between his expulsion and his reinstatement.

Prominent conservatives jumped on this juxtaposition. If Pearson speaks differently to different audiences, the claim goes, then he’s fake and a political liar. Trumpist spokesman Ali Alexander, who is himself of African-American descent, described Pearson’s two voices as signs of “a serious mental illness” in a since-deleted tweet. Right-wing activist Greg Price accused Pearson of “acting like a character from a Madea movie.”

There's being a southern preacher and then there's being a guy who graduated from a $60K per year college in Maine a few years ago acting like a character from a Madea movie.https://t.co/1fyzLtsRCX

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 12, 2023

We might excuse this pig-ignorant and unabashedly racist statement dribbling from White boy Greg Price’s mouth, since he’s probably unaware of America’s Black rhetorical tradition. But Alexander, a former ministerial candidate, should know better. He should know that Black pulpit speech uses rhetorical devices which are so time-tested, they’re literally described in the ancient writings of Aristotle and Cicero. Rhetorical devices that White people have forgotten, at great cost.

White Americans have long pined for the perceived authenticity demonstrated by our Black brethren. Perhaps that’s why we honkies have appropriated blues music, hip-hop culture, and FUBU couture. But somehow, in longing for Black authenticity, we’ve abandoned our commitment to Black people. We watch our favorite rappers perform onstage, and never hear them speak. We cherry-pick our favorite Martin and Malcolm sermons, and never glimpse the breadth of their delivery.

It’s easy to forget that, while White people increasingly get our worldviews mediated through television and streaming video, Black Americans receive much more of their contact verbally. Therefore, White public figures modulate their speaking style according to the microphone’s needs, and according to the loss compression caused by the broadcast signal. Black rhetoricians care more about how the sound carries in the available space.

Rep. Justin Jones, also of the Tennessee
Three (news photo)

If Rep. Pearson delivered his campaign video like he delivered his public exhortations, he’d blow out your computer’s speakers. Notice how his impassioned public speech gets distorted in the medium you’re probably using to watch it, your smartphone or laptop. Streaming simply can’t handle that degree of variation. I’ve seen similar technical degradation when my favorite Black preachers stream their sermons on YouTube and Facebook. Technology changes how we speak.

But as I say, these rhetorical flourishes aren’t uniquely Black. The great rhetorical pioneers like Aristotle and Cicero preached the importance of modulating your tone, emphasizing key words through repetition, and baring your emotions onstage. Black public speakers didn’t invent this performative style; White public speakers abandoned it. And then their mostly White audience forgot these techniques ever existed, and now act shocked to see them still being used.

White rhetoricians once loved these techniques. John Wesley, Abraham Lincoln, and William Jennings Bryant were all famous for getting so agitated during their speeches that they began weeping. Patrick Henry declaimed “Give me liberty, or give me death,” then reportedly fell down and played dead in the Virginia House of Burgesses. If we’re invested in authenticity, then running down Rep. Pearson isn’t the way. He’s using techniques our White ancestors perfected, and we forgot.