No abstract

Utilizing articulation theory, critical race theory and discourse analysis, this study examines the socio-racial discourses mobilized in response to the Jeremiah Wright media spectacle during the 2008 US presidential election. Two perspectives pervaded the social climate: one advancing racial transcendence and the other color consciousness in the name of addressing ongoing racial oppression. To explore the legitimacy of these claims, an analysis of online posts on YouTube and the Huffington Post revealed three socio-racial discourses: (1) the racial scaffolding of US society must be exposed by ''speaking truth to power''; (2) the US has transcended race and oppositional opinions are unpatriotic, antiAmerica profanity; and (3) claims of enduring racial oppression by African Americans are ungrateful, anti-progress ''babble.'' This study contends that the simultaneous articulation of multiple socio-racial discourses reflecting divergent commitments calls into question the very foundation of the discourse of racial transcendence.

Present contradictions in the intercultural communication field -the pre-eminence of western communication models and the minimization and denial of particular international and racial cultural voices -delimit the possibilities for nuanced theory building, scholarship, and teaching that may address the greatest challenge facing the world community -fostering understanding and advancing peace and security. This article introduces the notion of avant-garde epistemic confluence as one possibility for engendering greater levels of inclusion of marginalized and silenced voices at the epistemic core of the field to effectively address the evolving intergroup, multi-ethnic, and inter-religious conflicts on the world's stage. Mobilizing principles grounded in mindfulness and intercultural alliance building at the individual and disciplinary levels via research, theorizing, and teaching is a driving force. Advancing a pragmatic vision of the intercultural communication field in this twenty-first-century moment with the potential to address complex cross-cultural and intergroup social and political tensions is the central mission.