Signifying Without Specifying

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama faced a difficult task-rallying African American voters while resisting his opponents' attempts to frame him as too black to govern the nation as a whole. Obama's solution was to employ what Toni Morrison calls race-specific, race-free language, avoiding open discussions of racial issues while using terms and references that carried a specific cultural resonance for African American voters. Stephanie Li argues that American politicians and writers are using a new kind of language to speak about race. Challenging the notion that we have moved into a post-racial era, she suggests that we are in an uneasy moment where American public discourse demands that race be seen, but not heard. Analyzing contemporary political speech with nuanced readings of works by such authors as Toni Morrison, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Colson Whitehead, Li investigates how Americans of color have negotiated these tensions, inventing new ways to signal racial affiliations without violating taboos against open discussions of race. Review: Li''s provocative and thoughtful close readings both compliment and contribute to one''s understanding of how fiction depicts talking b(l)ack. Elegantly scripted and beautifully argued, this fresh effort illustrates the interplay between the fiction of race and racial fiction. --Karla FC Holloway James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Law, Duke University Li's provocative and thoughtful close readings both compliment and contribute to one's understanding of how fiction depicts talking b(l)ack. Elegantly scripted and beautifully argued, this fresh effort illustrates the interplay between the fiction of race and racial fiction. --Karla FC Holloway James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Law, Duke University