I feel mixed about Banks's work, largely because I think that he could be even more concise in his expression and presentation of content. But this post is not about that.

This post is about a particular issue that Banks brings up that I like. Banks stresses the importance of creating some cultural room in which race can be discussed in meaningful ways. On 93, referring to Derrick Bell's And We Are Not Saved, Banks reflects,

"Those strategies and the book that resulted have demanded a response, forced dialogue, and therein created at least the possibility of a genuine rhetorical situation, where none existed before."

This caught my attention because it's a simple thing done within culture to give hope to race relations. And it's just a first step, but it is in the right direction. It brings up 2 questions for me:

1) How do we use that space, or exigency? Who gets to participate in that rhetorical situation? What are some of the aspects of the situation?

2) I've read some articles lately about how Barack Obama may represent a shift to post-racist (I think I have that phrase right) America, meaning a view or a recognition that racism is not the issue many have thought it to be. America is not as racist as we thought, in other words, and the issue need not be worried about. The more virulent articles that argue this (as the ones in the National Review) take potshots at leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, saying that Jackson and Sharpton are more likely to detract from Obama given that a post-racist America puts them out of the job of racial activism.

(still 2) A lot of this is clearly bullshit, but it is an interesting question to begin to think about- if there is enough dialogue and recognition, if things change a whole hell of a lot in racial understanding and practice (unlikely, but possible), what would happen to the exigency created by Banks in this book and the one he refers to in Bell? Does that rhetorical situation get satisfied and closed up? Does the kairos (timing, placement) of it pass and the argument become outdated? And how will we know when such issues are no longer worth talking about? I don't know if this is worth asking yet, but I am curious about it.