by Annie Ring, PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy 

J.L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words demonstrates that language is not just descriptive but in some cases is performative. That is, Austin’s speech act theory argues that language itself performs, changes, or does things in the world. Speech act theory classically considered institutions like marriage, where a pronouncement weds people into a legally binding relation, or boat christening, where naming and blessing a boat before the maiden voyage protects its passengers (Austin).

I argue that speech act theory can help illuminate white women’s linguistic terrorism, an undertheorized use of language that manifests white supremacist terrorism. Because this speech act has deadly consequences, it should be thoroughly studied.

I consider below two well-known examples that demonstrate white women’s linguistic terrorism: first, Carolyn Bryant’s 1955 accusation against Emmett Till; and second, Amy Cooper’s 2020 accusation against Christian Cooper (no relation). 

Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old white woman, accused Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black child, of grabbing her waist and making a sexual remark (State of Mississippi vs. J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant). Her husband, Roy Bryant, and her brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, brutally murdered Emmett Till. Till’s murder was a case of lynching, a form of white supremacist terrorism that includes murder by white mobs often in public celebration, typically without consequences to those participating in the murder (Wood). In the context of the United States, wherein lynching has been commonplace, white women’s linguistic accusations against Black men bring about white supremacist terrorism. I call this white women’s linguistic terrorism as the speech act itself does something: It manifests white supremacist terrorism. Carolyn Bryant’s accusation is an instantiation of white women’s linguistic terrorism, as her speech act manifested the lynching of Emmett Till. 

Her accusation follows a linguistic pattern of white supremacist terrorism, influenced by racialized mythologies (Ring). Angela Davis’ work demonstrates that the fictitious myth of the Black rapist was employed as justification for lynching. Black masculinity was mythologized as threatening and sexually promiscuous (Davis; Ginzburg; Wells-Barnett). White women, mythologized as pure, fragile, and innocent, could call upon white men for “protection.” White masculine violence was framed as protection of white femininity (Ring). Because of this patriarchal construction of white femininity as innocent, moral, and nonviolent, white women have largely not been held accountable for their participation in racist atrocities (Jones-Rodgers). This is a contributing factor to the inattention to white women’s language use in lynching cases. 

White women’s linguistic terrorism remains a potent threat as evidenced by Amy Cooper’s 2020 accusation against Christian Cooper. One difference is that Christian Cooper recorded their encounter; after being asked to follow park rules of keeping her dog on a leash, Amy Cooper “spit out the most potent threat a white woman can make against a Black man” (Frisina). She threatens to call the police—who often participated in lynching (Dunbar-Ortiz) —and states: “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life” (Levenson and Sgueglia). This accusation could have cost Christian Cooper his life—police murder of Black men is a widespread phenomenon that typically goes unpunished, much like cases of lynching (Lyons et al.). Her accusation was untrue, but her speech act is potent—her “decision to summon the police against a man who did nothing more than ask her to follow the rules reads as nothing short of a potential threat to his life” (Frisina). 

These two examples share linguistic phenomena. A white woman makes an untrue accusation against a Black man or child. A white woman’s speech act has the potential to manifest white supremacist violence and serve as its justification. 

Speech act theory can illuminate the power that white women’s linguistic terrorism enacts, and testimonial injustice illuminates this phenomenon further, as it describes whose testimony is believed and whose is not (Fricker). In an encounter between a white woman and a Black man in the US, the white woman’s testimony is typically believed, and his account is disbelieved. 

The video changes the testimonial injustice in this case but demonstrates another aspect of white women’s linguistic terrorism: White women’s testimony is not always believed but is typically believed when it serves the interests of white supremacy. For example, Carolyn Bryant’s language recanting her original testimony is not taken seriously (Fox; Mitchell). Her language use that manifests white supremacy is believed, while her language that does not serve white supremacist interests is not. This phenomenon follows a pattern that Kate Mann’s work illuminates: In a patriarchal society, women who follow patriarchal gender norms are rewarded; those who do not are punished, sometimes with misogynistic violence. White women’s language use that follows white supremacist norms is generally believed; white women’s language use that challenges white supremacist norms is generally not, demonstrating the intertwining of patriarchal and white supremacist power. 

My archival investigation into white women’s linguistic terrorism is still underway. Through demonstrating the significance of this speech act and its potent threat of racial terror even today, I seek to respond to the lack of white women’s accountability for white supremacist violence.   

—Annie Ring received a 2023 Graduate Student Research Grant for this project.

Works Cited

Austin, J.L. How to Do Things with Words. Harvard University Press, 1975. 

Davis, Angela Y. Women, Race and Class. Vintage Books, 1983.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. City Light Books, 2018.

Fox, Margalit. “Carolyn Bryant Donham Dies at 88; Her Words Doomed Emmett Till.” The New York Times, April 27, 2023, sec. US News.

Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Frisina, Jessica. “A Call for Reform: What Amy Cooper’s 911 Call Reveals About the ‘Excited Utterance’ Exception.” Northeastern University Law Review, 2020. 

Ginzburg, Ralph. 100 Years of Lynchings. Black Classic Press, 1988.

Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E. They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South. Yale University Press, 2019.

Levenson, Eric, and Kristina Sgueglia. “There Were Two Calls between Amy Cooper and 911 about a Black Birdwatcher in Central Park, Prosecutors Say.” CNN, November 17, 2020, sec. Crime and Justice.

Lyons, Christopher J., Noah Painter-Davis, and Drew C. Medaris. “The Lynching Era and Contemporary Lethal Police Shootings in the South.” Race and Justice, vol. 14, no. 3, July 2024, pp. 265–289. 

Manne, Kate. Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Mitchell, Jerry. “Carolyn Bryant Lied about Emmett Till. Did Author Tim Tyson Lie, Too?” Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, December 10, 2021, sec. Perspective.

Ring, Annalee. “A Critical Feminist Semiology: De-naturalizing and Re-politicizing Patriarchal, White Supremacist, and Settler-Colonial Systems of Meaning.” University of Oregon, 2024. PhD diss. 

State of Mississippi vs. J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant. The Circuit Court Second District of Tallahatchie County Seventeenth Judicial District, State of Mississippi, 1955.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States. Project Gutenberg, 2005. 

Wood, Amy Louise. Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890–1940. University of North Carolina Press, 2009.