The whiteness of LBJ’s rhetoric: The appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents a racial rhetorical critique of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential rhetoric. Drawing from examinations of drafts, memos, and proclamations, I argue that LBJ in particular and the administration more generally utilized the appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and his naming as the chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican American Affairs (IACMAA) on June 9, 1967 to reinforce the predominance of the white racial frame in U.S. political life. I highlight how LBJ’s administration relocated “Mexican Americans” politically within his Great Society according to the premises of the white racial frame as Chicana/o movement activism turned toward amplifying separatist, racially charged rhetoric(s). This racially tuned revision of prior rhetorical histories of LBJ’s rhetorics demonstrates how his administration participated in sustaining white supremacy, fashioned a whitened image of “Mexican American” communities capable of flourishing in his “Great Society,” and excluded alternative political forms that challenged the assimilationism typically expected of Latinx communities more generally. I conclude that fomenting the political status of the white racial frame was integral to LBJ’s Great Society rhetoric and to evolutions in Chicana/o activism in the late 1960s.