To point out and decry rac-ism (or any other social ill) is not the same as adopting a truly public subjec-tivity. Ironically enough, it may be a way to write oneself outside the scene of public rhetorical action. To simply call for an end to racism (or an end to any other public crisis) risks closing the line of intervention too soon. We leave no space to consider the multiple networks across which this crisis is embedded, and through which we may rework the relations of power.

Are we inadvertently reproducing discourses that cultivate exceptional public subjects

The concept of para-expertise may help to resituate how we conceptualize, teach, and use notions of expertise in the classroom, since it can teach nonexperts to pursue rhetorical action through strategic expertise allianceswithout overstepping the very real limitations of nonexpertise. As a pedagogical approach, this articulation may also help students better understand the work of expert interactions among audiences, texts, and themselves as novices

p ublic subjects are never single.

exigence

Her solution is pedagogical: a shift toward inquiry as social action. Rather than encouraging students merely to write about what interests them or to take a definitive position in a paper or speech (requiring them to decide whether something is good or bad), Rice proposes that educators encourage their students to investigate the complexities of a given topic without a commitment to reaching a conclusion.