Part one of a presentation given at the Department of Communication's Research Colloquium (17 April 2013).

ABSTRACT


In 1970, Black autoworker James Johnson, Jr. fatally shot three people at Chrysler’s Eldon Avenue Gear and Axel Plant in Detroit. After a legal defense arguing racism and labor exploitation provoked his actions, Johnson was found not guilty of murder for reasons of insanity and received a substantial workmen’s compensation settlement. His actions also functioned as a key nodal point in radical Black labor organizing in the Motor City. In this essay, I argue that the Eldon shooting functioned as an exigence for the production of a racialized class consciousness inside Detroit’s auto plants, as well as the city at large. By engaging discourses emanating from both legal and activist spheres, I conclude that rhetorics of violence are central to the articulation of class struggle and should prompt rhetorical scholars to consider how ways of confronting violent behavior enable and disable certain modes of solidarity and political practice.

"Chrysler Pulled the Trigger" Part 1

Part two of a presentation given at the Department of Communication's Research Colloquium (17 April 2013).

ABSTRACT

In 1970, Black autoworker James Johnson, Jr. fatally shot three people at Chrysler’s Eldon Avenue Gear and Axel Plant in Detroit. After a legal defense arguing racism and labor exploitation provoked his actions, Johnson was found not guilty of murder for reasons of insanity and received a substantial workmen’s compensation settlement. His actions also functioned as a key nodal point in radical Black labor organizing in the Motor City. In this essay, I argue that the Eldon shooting functioned as an exigence for the production of a racialized class consciousness inside Detroit’s auto plants, as well as the city at large. By engaging discourses emanating from both legal and activist spheres, I conclude that rhetorics of violence are central to the articulation of class struggle and should prompt rhetorical scholars to consider how ways of confronting violent behavior enable and disable certain modes of solidarity and political practice.

Bryan McCann