“Tetreault builds off of post-truth/disinformation literature, rhetoric of race scholarship, new media studies, and literature from the activist community itself to show how contemporary post-truth is the digital incarnation of a much longer US history of disinformation.” —Armond Towns, author of On Black Media Philosophy
“Truth Be Told offers a tool kit for unpacking disinformation from the standpoint of the oppressed and recognizing activist strategies for challenging disinformation through racial justice and queer lenses. Tetreault’s conclusions add to emerging research on the rhetoric of truth claims, gaslighting, and epistemic justice.” —Dana L. Cloud, author of Reality Bites: Rhetoric and the Circulation of Truth Claims in U.S. Political Culture
In Truth Be Told, Elliot Laura Tetreault challenges the idea that the “post-truth” present is a novel crisis brought about by the contemporary right-wing and digital media. Instead, the political control of “truth” has always been central to intersecting systems of oppression including white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy. Arguing that liberal counter-disinformation strategies based in a racialized ideal of civility are insufficient, the book advocates for centering the lived knowledge of oppressed communities to develop resistance and survival strategies for a disinformation environment.
Taking a critical disinformation studies approach, Tetreault analyzes post-truth political messaging in the US after 2016. Using racial rhetorical criticism combined with a queer lens, they focus on how contemporary antiracist, queer, and feminist activists used various forms of cultural production to work against disinformation and its circulation, enacting refusal and insisting on the validity of their own knowledges as a form of community care. Tetreault ultimately argues that it’s not just the truth that academics must advocate for; they must question whose truth and how that truth is mediated and circulated.
Elliot Laura Tetreault is Assistant Professor of English and Affiliate Faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. They are coeditor (with Bruce Horner) of Crossing Divides: Exploring Translingual Writing Pedagogies and Programs.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Black Lives Matter, Violent Imaginaries, and Narrative Activism
Chapter 2 Activist Relational Knowledge against Digital Disinformation in BLM and the Women’s March
Chapter 3 Charlottesville’s False Equivalencies: Rejecting “Both Sides” by Refusing to Waste Time
Chapter 4 Whose Insurrection? Rhetorical Gaslighting after January 6 and the Uses and Limits of Testimonial Acts
Chapter 5 Anti-Trans Disinformation and t4t Care through Joy and Spite
Conclusion
