| Recognizing that the dominant intercultural communication scholarly discourses do not accurately reflect the experiences of African Americans, this dissertation is a rhetorical exploration of how African American rhetors make sense of their lived experiences. Beginning with an African-centered examination of Richard Wright's (1944, 1945) Black Boy, bell hooks's (1996) Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood, and Ralph Ellison's (1947/1972) Invisible Man, this dissertation identifies new ways of understanding Black communication as intercultural communication and, more distinctly, co-cultural communication practice.; This dissertation reveals that the distinct and nonmonolithic communicative experiences of African American rhetors inform and extend prior investigations of intercultural communication. An African-centered approach to communication research highlights voices of the past and present to reveal a collective understanding of the Black experience. This dissertation posed three research questions, and from its analysis emerged interconnected themes that provide insight into our understandings of Black communication as a unique co-cultural communication practice of the iterativity of racism/White privilege in voice, gaze, and space; and of the ways in which African American rhetorical traditions work to express, resist, and transform the Black experience.; One significant contribution of this study is its attempt to place the nonmonolithic Black experience at the center of intercultural communication research. By drawing from the critical memories of Black rhetors, this dissertation advances intercultural sensitivity and anti-racist dialogue. Conversely, one limitation of this study is its limited focus that neither speaks for nor represents the overall African American population. |
