Mara Lee Grayson is one of an emerging generation of composition and rhetoric scholars who are not only writing at the leading edge of research in our field, but whose activism is transforming our profession. If this generation is standing on the shoulders of giants to see what may be seen from there, they are also calling us to account for that which too many of us have refused to see. Fiercely and tenderly, in turns, this new generation is leading scholars, teachers, and students in the field to an understanding of equity richly conceived and insisting that we make it and keep it real.



In Race Talk in the Age of the Trigger Warning: Recognizing and Challenging Classroom Cultures of Silence Mara Lee Grayson has accomplished the remarkable feat of producing a book in the field of composition studies that is exceptionally well researched, well theorized – and supremely readable. While Grayson has written most directly to teachers, this is a book for students – undergraduate and graduate – as well as for “seasoned” teachers who might be inclined to believe they no longer need such books. They do. We do. Race Talk fills a space in the literature of composition studies that has been empty for too long.



In prose that is both elegant and accessible, Grayson argues for equitable, trauma-informed pedagogical practice built upon the framework of racial literacy. Drawing on feminist and intersectional theory, critical race theory, whiteness studies, and trauma studies as well as critical discourse analysis and her own empirical study of composition teachers, Grayson offers readers a thorough historical context, clearly defined terms, and astute critique of direct and oblique manifestations of racism and white supremacy that manifest in those everyday teaching practices that too often function as “common sense” in the writing classroom.



In particular, Grayson notes the ways and degrees to which the “trigger warning” often serves the interests of more privileged students while doubling down on the silencing and marginalization of Students of Colour and Indigenous Students. Further, she argues, debates about the efficacy of “trigger warnings” frame students from historically marginalized and excluded groups who have been traumatized by racism, white supremacy, and their most common manifestation in quotidian microaggressions as members of a “victim culture.”



But Grayson accomplishes more in this text than telling us what we ought not do. Using the very pedagogical strategies for which she advocates, Grayson shuttles between narrative, analysis, critique, and counternarrative to weave a racially literate, critical pedagogical praxis. Theoretically grounded and eminently pragmatic, Grayson offers her readers a way to move that we can learn, use, and build upon as we work to create and sustain equitable writing classrooms.



I am delighted to endorse and recommend this book and am looking forward to including it as required reading for both undergraduate and graduate courses I will soon be teaching.