When Feelings Move, Whose Feelings Matter? Critical Race Theory Bans and the Affective Politics of Public Education

Abstract In recent attempts to ban the teaching of critical race theory in American schools and universities, students’ feelings have served as a frequent rationale and a subject of debate. Building on rhetoricians’ long-standing interest in emotion and its ties to movement and pedagogy, I track the rhetorical circulation of students’ feelings in and around critical race theory bans. I argue that such tracking helps elucidate the racialized role students’ emotions have played and continue to play in public education, with White students’ feelings positioned as a precious resource that must be protected from the dangerous feelings of others. I also consider how the circulation of students’ feelings can help rhetoricians rethink the distinctions and connections among the traditional branches of rhetoric.