Constructing police as first responders: a critical rhetorical archetype analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Utilizing Critical Race theory, this essay constitutes an ideological critique of recent mediated discourses that construct police officers as “heroic first responders.” Through the rhetorical archetype, this analysis reveals how the discursive shift to describe police as “heroic first responders” operates as a covert, ideological response to Black Lives Matter and the mediated depictions of Black trauma via law enforcement. Elucidated through the analysis of recent media artifacts that celebrate first responders, this project demonstrates how the amalgamation of police officers, emergency medical technicians, and firefighters diverts attention away from the whiteness of law enforcement and demands for racial justice. As temporary and cultural, the rhetorical archetype of “police as heroic first responders” dictates the erasure of Black voice, perpetuates an oppressive ideology of whiteness, silences dissent, and propagates the celebration of police officers in the wake of demands for police reform.