A Question of Character: Re(-)signing the Racial Contract

Abstract

two epigraphs with which I begin this essay epitomize the stasis at the heart of any discussion of racial reconciliation: the question of credibility. first comes from the American social activist Malcolm X.1 second comes from Captain Jacques Hechter, a former member of South Africa's apartheid security police.2 Taken together, they reveal the double-edged of rhetorics third blade: ethos. question of character as it emerges in language is fundamentally at stake in any discussion of race,3 and it informs my response to John Hatch's thoughtful and well-argued essay on enlarging rhetorical coherence through reconciliation.4 Hatch suggests that by forging a rhetoric of coherent reconciliation, we might contribute to a better public discourse about race in the United States. He argues that by further theorizing reconciliation as a tragicomically coherent rhetoric, rhetoricians could help prepare the way for principled practices and constructive critiques of racial reconciliation in the United States.5 1 wish to pursue this suggestion by examining the rhetoric of racial reconciliation in the enlarged space opened by Malcolm X's question and Jacques Hechter's answer: the space within which apologies are deemed sincere or simply expedient, within which credibility and are paramount. This space is circumscribed by the center/margin relationship that is defined by what Charles M. Mills describes as The Racial Contract. Unlike the social contract idealized in Western philosophy and politics, the Racial Contract reveals the ideological presuppositions and material conditions that have constrained race relations for the past five hundred years. During that time, black rhetors have sought persistently to re-sign the Racial Contract, and have contributed to the crafting in real