Language as Power: The 'Black-White' Binary and the Discourse of Racial Hierarchy

This dissertation makes the case that key to understanding any process of ideological domination is recognizing the critical role that language and communication play in directing state populations to embrace institutionalized ways of thinking and behaving. It specifically argues that certain fragments of speech---called "political tropes"---act as discursive funnels for shifting our mental states into domains of rationalizing that uphold the integrity and stability of the American regime. In particular, this dissertation contends that the phrase the "black-white" binary possesses specific properties as a racial political trope in that its discursive effects cause people to express beliefs and/or values that uphold the status of whites to the detriment of blacks. The point here is that the "black-white" binary political trope is a disciplining strategy of state hegemony that brings the populace into compliance with "racial hierarchical" thinking. And because all political tropes inhere within a certain framework of ideological domination---what this dissertation terms their zone of influence---the method for detecting their presence is simply a matter of identifying what "thought patterns" people display when exposed to a particular political trope's discursive effects. This was certainly the case with the "black-white" binary, as people's elicitation of this political trope revealed racial hierarchy as operating through the thinking tendencies of situational differentiation, behavioral denigration, ethical avowing, and accountability denial. In effect, these were the discursive frames by which people expressed their complicity with "racial hierarchical" thinking. Ultimately, however, the implications of these findings extend much further than the "black-white" binary case study, as they give us theoretical leverage for interpreting the technical and extensive nature in which hegemonic power can shape a variety of consensual dispositions within the populace. A theory of political tropes begins to accomplish this objective by exposing the politicized nature in which language and communication can function as repositories for hegemonic power, diverting our thoughts and sentiments into domains of rationalizing that secure the integrity and stability of the American regime.