(2004b: 2–3). There are suggestions for further readings in this area at the
end of the chapter.
Style, authenticity, and race
Smitherman looked closely at the distinctive style and rhetorical features
of AAVE in her analysis of the African American community’s differing
responses to the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas controversy.
In 1991, George Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, an African
American jurist, to the Supreme Court. In the course of confirmation
hearings in the Senate a witness rose to lodge a protest. Anita Hill, an
African American law professor who had worked under Thomas at the
EEOC, came forward to charge Thomas with sexual harassment in the
workplace. She provided ample detail and answered the Senate’s questions
with dignity and calm. A media frenzy arose around Hill’s testimony and
Thomas’s responses; the matter was debated fiercely across the country.
Thomas was confirmed by a 52–48 vote. Many who supported Hill
suggested that in a Senate that was 98 percent male, Hill’s charges were
never taken seriously (Smitherman 1995a). In her study of reactions to the
case, Smitherman found cultural differences in discourse style: Hill’s
rhetorical devices were distinctly Anglo, while Thomas
capitalized on and ruthlessly exploited the African American Verbal
Tradition for all it was worth. He seized the rhetorical advantage,
swaying Black opinion by use of the touchstones of the Oral Tradition
and sociolinguistically constructing an image of himself as culturally
Black and at one with the Folk.
(ibid.: 238–239)Approaching this same issue from another angle, Weldon’s (2008) study of
middle-class African Americans again underscores the importance of
African American verbal traditions in establishing a linguistic connection
to the great African American community. In analyzing a video recording
of African Americans talking together during a televised symposium she