Reconciliation as a Rhetorical Lens for Examining Barack Obama’s Speech
“A More Perfect Union” by
Paul E. Stafford
Submitted to Dr. Wendy Atkins-Sayre of the
Speech Communication Department of
The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
SCM 740 Rhetorical Criticism
Spring 2009

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Introduction
On March 18 th
, 2008, then-Senator Barrack Obama delivered a speech at Philadelphia’s
National Constitution Center as part of his campaign run for the 2008 Presidential election. The speech was designed to address the recent controversy surrounding Obama’s affiliation with his former minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the days leading up to the speech, the national media flooded the airwaves with images and sound bites of a flamboyant Wright espousing his views from the pulpit using incendiary language that touched off a firestorm of criticism on both sides of the color line. Rather than simply attempt to distance himself from Wright (which he would eventually do in the weeks following his speech), Obama seized the opportunity to address the controversy as a symptom of the much larger issue of race relations in America and introduce his idea of moving the country toward a more perfect union. The significance of
Obama’s rhetoric surrounding the tensions of a black and white America gripped with reproach for its racial exploits reawakened the need to progress from such past disparities so that a nation can prosper in new era of hope and change.
Central to Obama’s speech is the notion of moving toward a “more perfect union,” an idea set forth in the preamble of the United States Constitution that he uses to introduce the theme of his address. Throughout his speech, Obama threads together the disparate experiences of racial tensions lingering in the background of American life “that we’ve not yet made perfect”
(27). In doing so, Obama revisits the past from both a black and white perspective to explain the racial stalemate hovering over the country, and proposes how we can work through our differences toward unification and prosperity. His rhetorical style takes on a tone of reconciliation that ultimately seeks a dialogue of atonement and understanding between the races so that together we may progress as a nation. McPhail (2004) states: “If racial reconciliation is to

3 become a reality, we all [italics added by author] must be able to speak candidly, and we all
[italics added by author] must be willing to listen” (p. 398). Obama’s speech acts as lightning rod for such dialogue to take place.
While the study of reconciliation is still in its infancy (Hatch, 2006), the goal of this paper is to capture the varied arguments surrounding the concept(s) of reconciliation and its use as a rhetorical lens for examining Barack Obama’s 2008 race speech. The first section of this paper summarizes the events that motivated Obama to deliver his speech on race, beginning with the Wright controversy, followed by a review of the historical issues discussed in the speech, and a short biographical sketch of Obama. Next, a brief review of literature examines selected studies of racial rhetoric followed by an analysis of the prevailing literature surrounding the concept reconciliation. Finally, reconciliation as a rhetorical lens is applied to an analysis of Obama’s race speech, followed by concluding remarks.
Historical-Cultural Context
A primary motivating factor behind then-Senator Barack Obama’s decision to deliver his now famous race speech came in response to the firestorm of media attention surrounding controversial comments made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s longtime friend and pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Reverend Wright played a significant role in Obama’s life from the moment the two met at Trinity Church in 1991. Not only did he fill the role of Obama’s spiritual advisor in and outside of the political arena, he also officiated his wedding, and baptized Obama and his two daughters. Obama even titled his 2006 book, “The
Audacity of Hope” after hearing one of Wright’s sermons (Miller, et al., 2008). The friendship became strained, however, when video clips began to surface in the media of Wright delivering stinging commentary from a number of his sermons during his years as minister of Trinity

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Church. In one clip, for example, Wright exclaimed, “The government gives the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America?’ No.
No. No Not ‘God Bless America’, ‘God damn America’. God damn America for killing innocent people” (Wright’s Controversial Comments, 2008). In another clip, Wright suggested that the
U.S. policy is to blame for 9/11:
We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards.
America’s chickens are coming home to roost (Wrights Controversial Comments, 2008).
Wright also suggested Hillary Clinton was out of touch with the African-American struggles:
“Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people. Hillary ain't never been called a n——-.” (Wrights
Controversial Comments, 2008). The media quickly latched onto to the videotaped remarks and within days, Wright’s bombastic voice and flamboyant delivery became popular news fodder bouncing among cable news networks, talk shows, and online blogs as questions swirled around
Obama’s association with his pastor.
While Obama disagreed with some of Wright’s rhetoric in the past, it became necessary to publically denounce such inflammatory remarks that went against his own beliefs and threatened to damage his campaign. The controversy, then, represents the primary exigence in need of positive modification. In a press conference just days after the clips aired, Obama revealed that Wright had left his spiritual advisory committee, and he also condemned the pastor’s remarks in an effort to put distance between himself and his minister, urging

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“Americans not to reject his presidential campaign because of ‘guilt by association’” (Johnson,
2008). However, Obama felt “that he had failed to resolve the questions, aides said, and told advisers he wanted to address the firestorm in a speech” (Zeleny, 2008). Not only would this speech present a formal opportunity to address the Wright controversy, it also provided a national arena in which to engage the underlying issues of racial tensions that continues to hang like a fog over the country. Toward this end, Obama spends part of his speech revisiting
America’s past atrocities to account for the nation’s present race relations.
To paint a picture of the current racial climate, Obama takes his audience on a historical journey to highlight some of the prevailing events that have shaped race relations in America. He begins at the Philadelphia convention with the assembly of the constitution in 1787. At the time of its signing, the issue of slavery divided the convention that argued over an injunction
“prohibiting and taxing the importation of slaves” (Peters, 1987, p. 164). The North wanted to tax southern slave owners for their property while the South demanded greater representation for its population, the majority being slaves (Peters, 1987). A compromise was reached that allowed the trading of slaves to continue for 20 years while approving laws governing interstate commerce (Zinn, 1980). In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson signed a law outlawing the trading of slaves, but only after a civil war some 60 years later would the issue of slavery be laid to rest.
Slavery had ended but the racial divide only widened as legalized segregation gained a foothold in the South.
By the late 1890s, the Jim Crow era began to take shape as “the Supreme Court had lost all enthusiasm for supervising the South’s treatment of its black citizens” (Thernstrom &
Thernstrom, 1997, p. 32). While the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the constitution abolished slavery, southern lawmakers found solace in a 1896 decision in Plessy v.

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Ferguson initiating the “separate but equal” doctrine. This ruling mandated separate cars for blacks and whites operating on railroads within the state of Louisiana thereby opening up the floodgates to local and state segregation measures that would characterize social order in the
South for decades to come. By 1940, it was estimated that 87 percent of all African-Americans were at or below poverty levels (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997). White supremacy dictated the law of the land in the South, keeping African-Americans from obtaining ample paying jobs, owning land, and reaping educational benefits.
After World War II, mechanized production reduced the need for manual labor in the predominately agricultural southern states, forcing many African-Americans northward to look for work and higher wages (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997). Three million African-Americans had relocated in the North by 1960 with another 1.6 million to follow during the decade. This population shift resulted in segregated neighborhoods throughout urban areas of the north as
African-Americans clustered together in certain areas of the cities. “Blacks and whites lived separately; nevertheless, the arrival of blacks fueled racial tensions” (Thernstrom & Thernstrom,
1997, p. 87).
By 1954, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) submitted a number of cases to the Supreme Court challenging the segregation of public schools
(Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997). The most important case, Brown vs. Board of Education , effectively brought an end to the “separate but equal” doctrine and a year later the Court mandated that segregated schools be integrated. By 1965, however, 75 percent of the schools in the South remained segregated. During the 1950s and ‘60s, African-Americans rallied around the civil rights leaders of the day, protesting continued segregation practices in cities and neighborhoods throughout the country.

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While African-Americans experienced economic and educational progress by the late
1960s, the following decades saw little change in the poverty line. Between 1970 and 1995 the black family poverty rate wavered between 30 and 26 percent, a mere four points over 25 years
(Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997). In the 1980s, welfare programs fell under attack by both
Democrats and Republicans leaving welfare recipients still below the poverty line, and African-
American children four times more likely than white children to grow up on welfare (Zinn,
1980). Affirmative Action, introduced in late 1960s to ensure equal opportunity for minorities, accelerated the rate of progress for African-Americans in the decades that followed, but also produced a backlash of resentment among many whites who saw it as preferential treatment.
Much of the anger that grew out of the discrimination practices of the Jim Crow era and
Civil Rights Movement became an inherited tension passed down through generations of
African-Americans. Reverend Wright is but one casualty of such intolerance. It is this culture of anger experienced by both African-Americans and Whites that Obama sees as the underlying problem of racial tension in America today.
Rhetor / Author
In addition to providing a biographical sketch of the rhetor, the purpose of this section also seeks to discover information regarding the speaker’s “experience, knowledge, and prior rhetorical action relevant to understanding the rhetorical act under consideration” (Campbell &
Burkholder, 1997, p. 53). In the case of Obama, the intertwining of his own story with his credibility as a speaker is tantamount with his capacity to speak on the issue of race in America.
Early in his speech, Obama declares, “I am the son a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas” (8). Born in Hawaii, Barack’s parents divorced when he was two-years old. His father left to attend Harvard, then returned to Kenya where he worked for the

8 government. He saw his son only once, when Barack was 10 years old, and was later killed in a car accident. His mother later remarried to an Indonesian man and the family moved to Jakarta where Barack first experienced the conditions of a third-world country and the distinction of being the first foreigners to live in their neighborhood (Ripley, 2008). Later, Obama’s mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend prep school. Here, Obama was one of only a handful of black students and learned how to move between his “black and white worlds” (Ripley, Thigpen, & McCabe, 2004).
After graduating high school, Obama attended Columbia University in New York City where he received a degree in political science. Soon after, he made his way to Chicago to work as a community organizer for Altgeld Gardens, a public housing project where he campaigned among its neighborhood citizens for improved conditions “amid shuttered steel mills, a nearby landfill, a putrid sewage treatment plant, and a pervasive feeling that the white establishment of
Chicago would never give them a fair shake” (Walsh, 2007).
After three years of working in the Chicago community, the project ran out of funding and Obama left for Harvard Law School where in 1990 he became the first African-American president of Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude with a law degree a year later (Walsh, 2007). Also during this time, he met his future wife, Michelle, whom he married in
1992. After law school, Obama practiced as a civil rights lawyer for a Chicago law firm, and also taught at the University of Chicago Law School (Walsh, 2007).
Obama’s advocacy work helped him land a state Senate seat in 1996 where he worked along side Republicans in creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax that provided
$100 million in tax cuts to families in Illinois. He also pushed through a landmark bill requiring law enforcement officials to videotape police interrogations after a number of death row inmates

9 were found innocent (Briscoe, 2004). In 2004, Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate and, working along side republicans, he passed a law to help revitalize people’s trust in the government by making it possible for individuals to go online to see how their tax dollars were spent. He also served on the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Veteran’s Affair
Committee, and the Foreign Relations Committee (Organizing for America, 2009). In 2008,
Barack Obama became the first African-American elected to the office of President of the United
States.
A perspective built from a diverse family lineage, filtered through a myriad of educational and political endeavors, places Obama in a unique position to articulate the complexities of race relations that revisits America’s past while injecting his aspirations for a more harmonious future. The following section exemplifies a few of the studies that have analyzed the rhetorical strategies orators use to frame the issue of race.
Literature Review
For decades, orators have spoke on the issue of race using different persuasive strategies toward their audience. Selby (2002) suggests that Frederick Douglas applied parody as a tonal attribute in several of his speeches and also understood that religion was a key element in white society’s argument of slavery as justified and natural because of the hierarchal view that whites prevailed above all other races. Selby (2002) notes that by pointing out religion’s argument for slavery, “Douglass’s parodies reveal his genius as a rhetor and are most significant as a response to religion’s legitimization of racial oppression” (p. 334). In doing so, Douglass undermines the
“naturalness” of racism, leaving many to view his discourse as “blasphemous and his presence threatening” (Selby, 2002, p. 338).

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More that 100 years later, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech drew on a number of “integrative” styles that speak directly to his desire of an integrated America (Vail,
2006). Vail examines King’s speech through three theoretical lenses: voice merging, prophetic voice, and dynamic spectacle. First, King merges his voice with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address voice through his use of “scores” and years to measure time. He also refers to the sanctity of the
Emancipation Proclamation much in the same way Lincoln used the Declaration of
Independence in his anti-slavery argument. King’s prophetic voice uses biblical metaphors to illustrate the importance of the moment when he says, “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now” (Lucas & Medhurst, 2009, p. 376). King again employs biblical reference when he implores the nation “to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” (Lucas & Medhurst, 2009, p. 376). Finally, the March on Washington signifies the dynamic spectacle of 250,000 people of different races and ideologies gathered in one place to listen to King’s speech.
In terms of Obama’s skill as an orator, few academic articles exist at this point in his career that examines his rhetorical strategies. Atwater (2007) studies Obama’s rhetoric of hope in his 2004 Keynote Democratic National Convention speech. While Atwater does little to advance any rhetorical significance, she does offer a definition for a rhetoric of hope as more than a persuasive campaign approach; it involves using “symbols to get Americans to care about this country, to want to believe in this country, to regain hope and faith in this country, and to believe that we are more alike than we are different” (p. 123).
Darsey (2009) considers Obama’s entire campaign an amalgamation of his own personal journey tied up with America’s journey as a nation fueled by his rhetoric. The journey metaphor stands apart from a “movement” in that it is sustained by a purpose. Darsey (2009) notes “Even

11 if unknown at the outset, journeys have a direction and a destination; reward . . . lies at journey’s end, in completion” (p. 90). The notion of Manifest Destiny captures America’s journey, guiding expansion from East to West. Also linked to America’s journey is that of racial equality that “is part of national purpose, our mission; there will be no rest, no sleep, no reward until we have fulfilled our covenantal duty (Darsey, 2009, p. 92).
This brief review of literature accounts for a few of the strategies used to examine racial rhetoric. The purpose of this paper is to advance the study of how orators use rhetoric as a persuasive device toward unifying members of a racially divided society, rather than looking at rhetoric that elevates one race over another. The following section introduces a lens of reconciliation that, over the past decade, has gained momentum as useful rhetorical tool.
Reconciliation as a Rhetorical Lens
While rhetorical study of reconciliation is still in its infancy (Hatch, 2006), this review of literature intends to capture the varied arguments surrounding the concept(s) of reconciliation and its use as a rhetorical lens for examining Barack Obama’s 2008 race speech. First, the origins of reconciliation are explored as well as its varying, yet inclusive definitions. Next, rhetorical components including coherence, apology, forgiveness, reparation, and consilience provide further analysis and application of reconciliation. Lastly, a selection from Obama’s 2008 speech is examined to provide justification for using reconciliation as a rhetorical lens to analyze the entirety of his speech.
Doxtader (2003) identifies four different moments in time where an effort was put forth to define reconciliation. First, the roots of reconciliation can be traced back to 400 years b.c. where the Greeks applied several different connotations of the term that centered on identifying a
“a change from enmity to/for friendship (Doxtader, 2003). Here, reconciliation meant a

12 transformation of attitudes that encouraged violence and the changing of social-political structures that advanced conflict. Second, in the new testament, Paul the Apostle claimed that
“reconciliation can only be a divine gift: God has (already) reconciled humanity to God through
Jesus Christ, freely resolving that humanity will not be charged with its trespasses” (Doxtader,
2003, p. 272). Third, Hegel (1948) identified reconciliation as one’s ability to “reassume any vital relationship to re-enter the ties of friendship and love” (p. 236). Finally, Doxtader recognizes South Africa’s emergence from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s and the appeals to reconciliation in the country’s new democratic constitution. During this time, a courtlike body called the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) was established after abolishment of apartheid to give voice to the victims of violence. The TRC claimed that reconciliation involved a renewal of dignity and a recognition of experience that was crucial to
South Africa’s ability to deal with its past and reclaim a moral center (Doxtader, 2003). Further explication of these historical ties to reconciliation leads Doxtader to “call for rhetoric and a form of rhetorical activity. In both, individuals locked in conflict employ speech to turn historical justifications for violence toward mutual oppositions that set the stage for civil (dis)agreement and common understanding” (p. 268). Hatch (2006) points out that Doxtader does not believe that reconciliation brings an end to conflict or even signals agreement. Rather, it rhetorically rearranges identities and laws where the foundations of violence are “transformed into common ground for debate and dialogue” (Hatch, 2006, p. 189).
Other definitions of reconciliation reveal further conceptualizations as the rhetoric surrounding the term and its application takes shape. Fehler (2003) argues for examining reconciliation as what Bakhtin calls a secondary speech genre that requires verbal action to subsume and transform symbolic acts. Fehler analyzes reconciliation as a theological process

13 where the believer struggles to reconcile a human tragedy with his or her concept of God. In this way, Hatch (2003) notes that Fehler’s concept does not pertain to racial reconciliation.
Bharagava (2000) defines reconciliation as “an end to enmity through forgiveness, achievable only when perpetrators and beneficiaries of past injustice acknowledge collective responsibility for wrongdoing, shed their prejudice and victims regain their self-respect through the same process” (p. 66). Brookes (1998) offers a definition rooted in a criminal justice perspective: where the victim and offender – in the social rituals of apology and forgiveness – offer and receive the value and respect owed in virtue of their intrinsic human dignity and worth, and engage in a mutual condemnation of the criminal act, whilst ceremonially
“casting off” or decertifying the offender’s deviant or blameworthy moral status (p. 23).
Brookes also offers two additional concepts that many scholars include under the definition of reconciliation: reparation (“making good the material harm done”) and transformation (“where the individuals and communities concerned experience some degree of liberation from the conditions that perpetuate the cycle of violence, aggression, and domination exemplified in criminal behavior” (pp. 23-24). However, McPhail’s (1994) theory of rhetoric as coherence has received much attention and spurred debate in its application to racial reconciliation.
McPhail (1994) identifies the root cause of racism as language that is divisive, separating and defining reality in black and white terms. As an attribute of Western culture, such differentiating language leads “us to divide and rank diverse human beings instead of focusing on their community and interdependence” (McPhail, 1994, p. 739). Outside this dominant
Western thinking, another kind of rhetoric, that of Afrocentricity, views the world holistically, where all beings are interdependent with one another. Afrocentricity, then, illustrates coherence

14 in human interaction. Hatch (2003), however, points out that McPhail is critical of Afrocentricity and other African-American methods of racial critique because they rely “on the language of negative difference to contest white racism” (p. 740). In fact, McPhail sees this as
“complicitous” in how whites have seen blacks as negatively different, and even defines racism as “complicitous interaction” (1994, xii). McPhail suggests that until we recognize this type of defeating discourse, blacks nor whites can break free from its constraints. He argued that
Western rhetoric as persuasion did not go far enough to liberate race relations from complicit language that framed the categories of race. What was needed, McPhail believed, was a rhetoric that identified the constructed nature of race categories, established their relationship and the harmony they obscure while highlighting and uniting their diversity. From this, McPhail (2002) offers his theory of rhetoric as coherence as “discovering, managing, and synthesizing diverse conceptualizations of reality” (xiii) and different social realities “constructed and experienced, imposed, and suffered by racial groups in relation to one another” (Hatch, 2003, p. 738). These differences are understood and integrated in order to “transform division” (Frank & McPhail,
2005, p. 572).
McPhail (2002) later questions the applicability of his theory of coherence. He points to whites’ denial of ongoing racism rooted in the politics of innocence as the root cause of racisms’ enduring plague on society. He states:
I am beginning to wonder if race can be adequately addressed as a rhetorical problem at all . . . we must seriously reconsider if racism is a problem that can be remedied by rational discourse, or if it is a social pathology which expresses itself in a politics of innocence and an ideology of denial (p. 199).

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Hatch (2003) notes that McPhail’s theory of coherence places emphasis on rationality (logos) over emotionality (pathos) much in the same way rhetoric rooted in the divided language of
Western philosophies excludes the interdependent language of Afrocentricity. Hatch suggests that perhaps symbolic identification of atonement and catharsis is needed as part of a rhetoric of coherence that ultimately leads to reconciliation. Toward this end, Hatch assesses the key component actions of reconciliation: forgiveness, reparation, and apology.
First, forgiveness encompasses two ideas: (1) the internal struggle of coming to terms with, and freeing oneself from the psychological effects of the violation, and; (2) releasing the offender from blame through a social/rhetorical act. Actual forgiveness cannot take place until the offender begins to repent and make amends for the wrongful act (Hatch, 2003). Second, repentance only works when reparation is offered. Brooks (1998) writes that reparation involves
“agreeing to a fair and mutually acceptable form of restitution and/or compensation” (p. 23).
Augsburger (1992) notes that restitution is “the reestablishing of mutual justice” and “creative, responsive work” (p. 281) between the offender and the victim. Third, reconciliation involves the offering of an apology to the victim.
Hatch (2006) moves apology away from the classical notion of apologia and instead offers three shifts in apologetic discourse of reconciliation. First, an apology must signal a change in ethical character, moving from self-defense to restoring the respect and well-being of which the Other has been deprived” (p. 191). Second, both the offender and victim must recognize implicature and express empathy for one another to enable restoration. McPhail (2002) defines implicature as “the recognition and awareness of our essential interrelatedness, and an acceptance as basic to the belief that we are materially, ideologically, and spiritually implicated in each others lives” (p. ix). Finally, an apology simply seeks forgiveness, moving from “guilty

16 or not” to “repent or not.” Unlike apologia, where the self-redemption occurs through mortification, apology in reconciliation opens up the apologizer to the victim’s unpredictable response to the apology that may include an embrace of forgiveness, a request for a more thorough apology, or to other reparative actions. Apology on its own does lead to social redemption, but rather, redemption comes through the joint work of the “offender and victim coming together in apology, forgiveness, and more” (Hatch, 2006).
As an example of an apology toward reconciliation, Hatch (2006) examines Tony Hall’s
1999 apology during Leaders’ Conference on Reconciliation and Development (LCRD) in
Benin, West Africa. The purpose of the LCRD was to face the crime of slavery, offer apologies, and ask for forgiveness from African-Americans and other descendents of the African race, particularly those in America, thereby laying the foundation for racial reconciliation. Hall first points out the enduring economic effects of slavery over time and how whites as a group benefitted in terms of personal assets over blacks due to slavery and segregation. Second, Hall simply admits that while some Americans felt there was no need to offer a public apology, the first step toward reconciliation is to offer an apology to restore faith. Third, Hall cites past efforts at collective apologies (e.g. Japanese Americans interned during World War II) and notes that reparations were offered to the victims of these acts. Finally, Hall cites examples of reconciliation from the Bible. Hatch (2006) observes that mortification was not the strength of
Hall’s address but rather, the attention Hall placed on the Other helped to fully express his rhetoric of reconciliation. Moving beyond McPhail’s notion of racial coherence, Hatch (2002) claims that reconciliation offers a much deeper and meaningful way for engaging in the memory of slavery and racism. Reconciliation moves whites and blacks from complicity to a dialogue of cooperation necessary for racial justice and harmony. For McPhail, however, part of blacks and

17 whites working together involves a realigning of the ideologies that have tempered race relations for the past five hundreds. This, he says, involves a re-signing of the Racial Contract (McPhail,
2004).
The Racial Contract is a figurative, rhetorical document that “assumes that racism is the norm and that people think of themselves as raced rather than abstract citizens, which any objective history will in fact show” (Mills, 1997, p. 130). Black rhetors have attempted throughout history to re-sign the Racial Contract while whites have largely avoided this resigning. Discourse that competes with the white ideologies of advancement, discovery, and progress challenges the history of white privilege and power that has characterized racial history and maintains the resigning of both races to the current contract (McPhail, 2004). McPhail
(2004) states, “If we are to achieve genuine racial reconciliation, white people must resign the racial contract. That is, they must relinquish the power and privileges conferred upon them by virtue of their race (p. 401).
Wilson (2004) looks at the process of reconciliation from a theoretical view of interestconvergence and questions whether there actually exists a concern for reconciliation. Ogletree
(2004) writes, “interest convergence works as a safety-valve, to permit short-term gains for
African Americans when doing so furthers the short- or long-term benefits for the empowered portion of the population” (p. 21). Wilson (2004) cites evidence of interest-convergence theory.
For example, with the demise of slavery came a black wage-labor force that helped advance the
Industrial Revolution in the South. Military desegregation brought about increased efficiency in the armed forces, identifying and selecting individuals with special skills rather than relying on the race of an entire company of soldiers to staff positions. Moreover, significant developments and results from America’s entire history of the Civil Rights movement benefitted white

18 communities as much, if not more, than black communities. Wilson (2004) contends that if reconciliation is to have a chance in the U.S. one of two things must happen. First, a rhetoric must be used that advances whites’ interests. If reconciliation is to be pursued by both African
American and white proponents then such rhetoric should lead white Americans to believe reconciliation will cost them nothing or would result in their gain. A second way reconciliation might occur is if disparate racial political structures are suddenly threatened by some sort of crisis and are rearranged in such a way that might endanger the empowered majority (Wilson,
2004).
No matter how it may viewed and applied, the foundational argument for reconciliation calls for a rhetoric that recalls past atrocities, accounts for their outcomes, and offers a dialogue where both races can engage in the process of moving toward redemption and forgiveness. This paper will employ reconciliation and its fortifying components as a rhetorical lens through which to examine Obama’s race speech. In much the same way, Frank and McPhail (2005) studied
Obama’s address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Their analysis employed yet another component of reconciliation they identify as a rhetoric of consilience: “an approach in which disparate members of a composite audience are invited to ‘jump together’ out of their separate experiences in favor of a common set of value or aspirations” (Frank & McPhail, 2005, p. 572). This is evidenced during Obama’s address when he speaks of issues of class, civil liberties, and race that relate to his composite audience of homosexuals, Arab Americans, and other identity groups. Obama also used the word “hope” 11 times during his speech, a word that would come to symbolize his forthcoming presidential campaign, and as Frank and McPhail
(2005) note, “Without the possibility of hope there can be no coherence” (p. 579). Coherence, as discussed earlier, brings together difference to transform division, and through rhetoric of

19 consilience, Obama offers a way to work through America’s ordeal of slavery and racial segregation toward coherent reconciliation. Just as Frank and McPhail analyzed Obama’s 2004 convention address, a lens of reconciliation will guide a criticism of Obama’s 2008 race speech through close textual analysis and an examination of the rhetorical strategies he used to engage his audience on the issue of race relations in America today.
Clark (2002) suggests a definition closely aligned to the concept of racial reconciliation, claiming that there are three actions toward reconciliation. First, each opposing side must address the past. Second, each side must identify common goals for the future. Third, projects and goals must be developed so that both sides can work together to reach these goals (Clark, 2002).
Coupled with Frank and McPhail’s (2005) concepts of coherence and consilience, this explanation of reconciliation serves as the guiding definition toward developing a theoretical lens through which to examine Obama’s race speech.
The above review of literature captures the different concepts of reconciliation that begin to shape a larger picture of this complex, rhetorical process. This summary means to highlight the prevailing terms batted around the academic community that continue to inspire dialogue and debate. More specifically, studying reconciliation as a rhetorical strategy aids in understanding the persuasive language aimed at a diverse audience in a single speech. Using Clark’s (2002) definition as a guide, this study accounts for each one of the actions deemed vital to the process of reconciliation. As justification for the use reconciliation as a rhetorical lens, a review of Frank and McPhail’s (2005) article shows that McPhail does not believe Obama meets one of Clark’s
(2002) defining elements of reconciliation: “to address the past as seen by each side” (p. 368). In his 2008 speech, however, he does just this when he outlines the reasons for the anger experienced by both blacks and whites that for decades has stifled race relations. Obama

20 delicately, yet thoughtfully, speaks on behalf of both races to demonstrate that we must attempt to understand each other’s perspective if we are to atone for the past atrocities so that we may come together now, and in the future, as a diverse, yet unified America. The following analysis closely examines Obama’s rhetoric of reconciliation.
Analysis
In the beginning of his speech, Obama refers to America’s early triumph of implementing the Declaration of Independence while admonishing the founding fathers’ inability to offer a solution to the issue of slavery that divided the colonies. This division ultimately exploded into civil war that further climatized the country’s racial tensions in the decades that followed.
Obama then builds on the notion of moving toward a more perfect union through the locomotion of “common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren” (6). Obama’s vision of the country moving together in the same direction is not an idealized desire but a moral imperative, one that reaffirms his belief “that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together” (6). Here, Obama’s rhetoric reflects a tone of coherence, bringing together the different races in order to transform individual beliefs into a common purpose of moving beyond racial division toward reconciliation, toward a more perfect union.
Obama offers up his own story to illustrate that he, like so many Americans, comes from splintered lineages and diverse experiences. By doing so, he reveals not only his distinct heritage and family composition, but that he stands before his audience a product of a racial history distilled through the larger struggle of America’s racial history. He does not separate himself

21 from his audience, but rather, stands shoulder to shoulder with them, observing, “that out of many, we are truly one” (9). Obama explains:
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at
Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas . . . I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners -- an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible (8).
Obama’s brief narrative is less of an admission of his mixed racial background as much as it is a claim to his inheritance as an American, one he passes on to his children. It also serves as a catalyst for reconciliation by bringing together those in his past that have shaped his present course.
Elsewhere, Obama’s rhetoric of reconciliation assumes a more forgiving tone as he exemplifies the racial quandary before him. When he speaks of his disapproval over the comments made by Reverend Wright, and the subsequent controversy that ultimately created the present rhetorical situation, Obama states:
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother . . . who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe (23).
Here, Obama pivots between the allegiances to his race and to his family. Rather than alluding to one over the other, he states, “These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this

22 country that I love” (24). The racial slurs uttered by a family matriarch, and the “offending sermons” (26) disseminated by a community’s spiritual leader epitomize for Obama, and his audience, the pervasiveness of racial tensions that “reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through” (27), and “is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford right now” (26). Like Martin Luther King, Jr., before him, Obama indicates a sense of urgency facing the country:
And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American (27).
He follows this warning with a brief review of how racial tensions developed on both sides of the color line. This also reflects Clark’s (2002) first step towards reconciliation: “to address the past as seen by each side” (p. 368).
Obama prefaces his review of history with a quote from William Faulkner: “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past” (28). He points to the “brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow” as the underlying cause of racial disparity passed on from earlier generations, and how the effects of Brown vs. Board of Education “then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students” (29). The legalized discrimination that prevented blacks, “often through violence” (30), from owning property, qualifying for loans, or joining “unions, or the police force, or fire departments” (30) kept them from prospering and accumulating wealth to pass on to future generations. “That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white” (30). The erosion of the black family grew out of “a lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family” (31). All of these issues, Obama says, “helped create a

23 cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us” (31). He also explains that “This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up”
(33); not to provide an excuse for Wright’s and others’ behavior, but to demonstrate an understanding of “the anger and bitterness of those years” (33) that continues to fester in the minds of many African-Americans. Failing to recognize the source of this anger “only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races” (34).
Obama then turns to the anger experienced within the white community, fueled by
“stagnant wages and global competition . . . in which your dreams come at the expense of my dreams” (35). Obama explains the cultivation of white resentment: when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an
African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudice (35).
Here again, he reminds his audience of the danger of dismissing the resentments of white
Americans: “to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding (37).
By addressing the past from both sides of the color line, Obama attempts to narrow the racial gap, suggesting that black and white America is still one America bound together by disparate experiences, divided by inherited anger. Here, he sounds less like a presidential candidate and more like an informed American, one who seeks to make clear the complexities of racial division that ultimately affect us all. “It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck for years” (38), he says, and we have no choice but to work together “if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect

24 union” (39). He does not stray far from his thesis of unity that is essential to process of reconciliation.
Obama then suggests how both races might work toward releasing some of the built up resentment and blame aimed at one another, effectively demonstrating Clark’s (2002) second step of reconciliation: “to identify common goals for the future” (p. 368). Although he prepares these objectives for each race separately, they share a common trajectory toward reconciliation.
He suggests the African-American community to embrace “the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past” (40), but then proposes “binding our particular grievances—for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs—to the larger aspirations of all Americans”
(40). He implores both races to take charge of their own lives; that parents spend more time with their children and teach them that while they may experience discrimination in their own lives,
“they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny” (40).
He then asks the white community to acknowledge that the past and present incidents of discrimination do not “just exist in the minds of black people . . . [but] are real and must be addressed . . . It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams” (43). Here again, Obama moves from a micro-goal addressed to one side of the color line, to a macro-vision encompassing all Americans. He challenges his audience to
“find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well”
(44).
To identify these goals, Obama suggests that we need to refocus our attention on the issues that will move us forward as a nation, together. He warns of repeated distractions that have turned the issue of race into a “spectacle” (45) such as the O.J. Simpson trial, the Hurricane

25
Katrina aftermath, and the constant broadcasting of Reverend Wright’s controversial statements over the airwaves. Instead of miring in the spectacle, Obama insists that, we come together and say, ‘Not this time.’ This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and
Asian children and Hispanic children and Native-American children . . . This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag (48, 50).
In this way, Obama invokes a rhetoric of consilience, encouraging the disparate members of his audience to come together “in favor of a common set of values or aspirations” (Frank &
McPhail, 2005, p. 572).
Once the goals of the nation have been identified, Obama suggests a few tasks that will advance America toward a more perfect union, revealing Clark’s (2002) final step toward reconciliation: “develop concrete projects to meet these goals and begin to implement them” (p.
368). He advocates investing in schools and communities, and “enforcing civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system” (43). While this may sound like simple campaign rhetoric, it is a way to solidify a commitment of working together toward a common goal. Moreover, Obama suggests that we as a nation “build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old” (42) exemplifying McPhail’s (2004) notion of coherence: integrating and understanding difference to transform division. Obama continues: “by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generation . . . [and] investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America to prosper” (43). Here again, Obama appeals to a composite audience from diverse backgrounds. Standing before them, he literally embodies the

26 black, brown, and white experience. It is a powerful connection that emerges throughout his speech and brings credibility to his persuasive rhetoric of moving the country toward a more perfect union.
Conclusion
A primary motivating factor behind Obama’s decision to deliver his now famous race speech came in response to the overwhelming media attention surrounding the controversial comments made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright. However, Obama uses the majority of his speech to talk about the much larger issue of race relations in American and the idea of moving toward a more perfect union. The present study examined Obama’s speech through a rhetorical lens based on Clark’s (2002) three-step process of reconciliation. First, Obama addresses the past on both sides of the color line, looking at how disparate black and white experiences, ignited by slavery and Jim Crow laws, produced a climate of racial tension and stagnation. Second, he identifies common goals for the future where both races can come together and work toward a more just and prosperous future. Third, Obama provides tangible endeavors for blacks and whites to invest their energies and focus toward improving race relations while reinvigorating civic and national industry. His speech also includes a rhetoric of coherence that recognizes difference in order to transform division, and a rhetoric of consilience that brings together members of a diverse audience to support common ambitions and values.
Frank and McPhail (2005) suggest that “Reconciliation . . . requires the creation of ‘a new common history’ and not simply the rehearsal of an old mythology” (p. 583). This is what
Obama strives to initiate when he speaks openly about the roots of anger and resentment in both the black and white communities. He warns that we can allow distractions such as the Reverend
Wright controversy to thwart racial reconciliation, keeping blacks and whites in their respective

27 corners, or we can come together and engage in an open dialogue about the issues that have impeded our progress as a nation for far too long. He does not offer an apology on behalf of either race, nor does he outwardly seek reparation or forgiveness for America’s past atrocities.
Some critics may argue that because of these omissions Obama’s speech does not constitute reconciliation. But Obama does suggest that through dialogue can the process of reconciliation begin; that we are bound together by an unsettled past but “What we have already achieved gives us hope—the audacity of hope—for what we can and must achieve tomorrow” (42). He then states that acknowledging the legacy of discrimination must occur “Not just with words, but with deeds” (43), the same sentiment he uses in an April 2009 speech on improving relations with
Cuba and Venezuela. Reparation and forgiveness, then, is tied up with both action and rhetoric that fosters mortification.
Obama, however, does not claim these achievements will come easy or quickly but “that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds” (39). As Hatch (2003) explains: “The aim of reconciliation is not a fixed and final unity of identity . . . but rather a fluid, evolving harmony connecting differences and moments of dissonance in a diverse society”
(p. 754). Obama illustrates this toward the end of the speech when he admits that he too succumbs to “feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility” of a more perfect union but he finds “hope in the next generation” (52). Here again, his honest and hopeful tone speaks directly to the audience and he leaves them with a story that demonstrates the genesis of this union between two individuals separated by age and race. “By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough . . . But it is where we start.
It is where our union grows stronger” (60-61).

28
The goal of this analysis is not to account for all the elements contained in the myriad of scholarly definitions surrounding reconciliation. Instead, I attempt to fuse together some of these aspects to offer theoretical insight into one individual’s use of reconciliatory language. Obama does accomplish Clark’s (2002) specific set of actions toward reconciliation, but moreover, he brings to the podium a credibility through his own narrative that works to advance his aspiration of moving the country toward a more perfect union. His contribution as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago’s South Side provided a twenty-something year-old Obama the experience of leadership and social change, just as Harvard Law School helped to shape his intellect and prepare him for the rigors of working as a civil rights advocate that later propelled him toward U. S. Senate, and beyond. However, it is Obama’s diverse lineage that mostly nurtures his garnered perspectives and gives him voice to speak pragmatically about racial relations. He embodies Clark’s notion of reconciliation because he has embraced the distinctiveness of his ancestral past in order to realize his potential and accomplish his goals.
Rhetoricians might use and expand on this lens of reconciliation to examine such language inhabiting other speeches that seek to unify divergent audiences. Only time will tell, however, if
Obama’s reconciliatory tone moved the country toward racial harmony.
Hatch (2003) suggests that reconciliation deserves further study to better understand the underpinning complex elements of its process. This study is an effort aimed in that direction.
Obama’s race speech will undoubtedly be remembered as one of his shining moments that not only helped him in his bid toward the White House, but also revealed his prowess as a speaker under the scope of skepticism. He at once soothed his critics who questioned his faith and leadership in the wake of Reverend Wright’s remarks while engaging the race issue without

29 preference or an overt political agenda. In this way, Obama’s speech inspires a nation to engage in dialogue that will propel us toward a brighter future, together.

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