Sit-in as argument and the perils of misuse.

• Author: Varda, Scott J.

Introduction

Protests including marches, sit-ins, and the like are sites from which arguments are often generated. They can also be understood as arguments themselves. This essay suggests sit-ins should be theorized as arguments possessing both a generalexpressed by any employment of sit-ins--and a specific set of claims--related to the particulars of the case for which activists are protesting. Typically the province of activist efforts to critique the dominant mode of deliberation, sit-ins involve the occupation of public spaces and demonstrate activists' resolve through a performance of the embodied discourses of a movement. Given the circulation of argumentative meaning, altered understandings of sit-ins in one locale can influence its meaning in different contexts. As I explain, when considered as a form of argument, instances of sit-ins by state actors risk undermining the persuasiveness of sit-ins elsewhere.

Understanding the sit-in as argument provides a more robust theorization of how this rhetorical action works. The sit-in is an often discussed, but frequently understudied aspect of labor movements, social movement organizations ("SMOs"), and even upon rare occasion, governmental actors. The disciplines of communication, sociology, and political science have most prominently studied the sit-in. In communication, discussions of sit-ins typically occur within analyses of social movements (Cox 1974; Johnson 2007; Powell 2002; Rossing 2013; Simons 1967, 1969; Stewart, Smith, and Denton 2012), or as examples for larger discussions of rhetoric more generally (Bone, Griffin, and Scholz 2008; Bost and Greene 2011; Cloud 1999; Haiman 1969; Houck 2004; Scott and Smith 1969; Stuckey and O'Rourke 2014; Windt 1982). Despite this scholarly breadth, there exists surprisingly little work considering the sitin in depth. Most previous scholarship situates the sit-in as merely a subset of the scholar's preferred subject of study or is undertaken from a non-argumentation perspective. This essay focuses on the sit-in as a form of argument most often deployed by social and labor movements and activists. I make explicit the claim previous research has approached, but never named. I discern a general argument of the sit-in and isolate a recent instance of the argument's deployment to illustrate concerns with non-activist usages. Argumentation-focused analysis on the sit-in offers a new and productive theorization of this important phenomenon.

To illustrate, I analyze the 2016 Democratic Congressional protest, and especially its use of the sit-in. Following the mass-shooting at the Pulse nightclub and the eventual failure of gun control bills to advance to a floor vote in the House, Democratic members of both the House and Senate engaged in a mode of protest they posited as a sit-in. Lasting for more than 24 h, the Congressional protest was stylized to appear in the tradition of activist sit-ins. Led by John Lewis, the protest included songs, slogans, and mediated communication efforts likely designed to associate the protest with those sit-ins of the civil rights era. Approaching this event from the perspective of sit-in as argument, I contend the protest advanced flawed specific claims and also risked negatively altering the power of the sit-in's general claims. The essay proceeds by discussing the historical importance of the sit-in, as well as articulating the argument of the sit-in as a persuasive form. I then analyze the 2016 Congressional protest, before concluding with a discussion of that event's potential effect on the sit-in as an argument.

Sit-in as argument

The sit-in has been an effective tactic for labor and social movements for more than a century. Since the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) protests in 1906 (Dray 2010), the sit down strike, or sit-in, has come to be understood as an important argumentative tactic of myriad activist organizations. Significant examples of successful deployment of the sit-in include the IWW's efforts, the United Auto Workers of the 1930s (Fine 1969), the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Congress on Racial Equality's efforts in the 1940s (Brown and Stentiford 2014), scores of civil rights protests of the late 1950s and 1960s (Bynum 2013; Kendi 2016), including the aptly named "sit-in movement" (Corrigan 2016), the Ladies Home Journal (Gibson 2011) and disability sit-ins (Mezey 2005) of the 1970s, the Peace movement of the 1970s and 1980 s (Lofland 1993), and even the anti-abortion movement in the 1980s (Tarrow 2011). In more recent decades, the sit-in protest has been employed by nonviolent protesters of myriad stripes--including those calling for rights for the disabled (Bond 2014), ciswomen (Gorsevski 2015), trans persons (Avery 2011), and immigrants (Gulasekaram and Ramakrishnan 2015)--just to name a few. The breadth of sit-in usage by different social movements speaks to its continued effectiveness as a means of persuasion.

The sit-in can be productively theorized as an argument, one that expresses both general and specific claims. That is, any sit-in asserts two types of arguments: a general (expressed by any employment of sit-ins) and a specific (related to the particulars of the case for which the activists are protesting). While the tactic may be used as a way to convey the views of social, labor, or political movements and organizations, at root, all these instances share at least one argument in common. All sit-ins express an argument consisting of the following propositions:

1. the status quo is fundamentally unable to sufficiently address our concerns, or understand our perspective;

2. we are symbolically transforming our individual bodies to a collective to deny the free flow of business as usual;

3. the public(s) should pay attention to our act because our issue is important; we are prepared to be jailed for our protest.

In this formulation, scholars can analyze sit-ins as arguments containing general as well as specific claims. Specific sit-ins can, for example, be investigated by considering how the above propositions are warranted or evidenced. In addition, such an approach invites investigation of argument framing, modes of persuasion, efforts to seek consubstantiality, or the shaping of subjectivities (Burke 1969). In practice, this understanding (at least) allows the study of sit-ins to proceed similarly to the study of linguistic arguments.

Collectives or social movements usually enact the sit-in as a performance of last resort (Richie 1970). In this sense, the sit-in articulates a striking difference from the possibilities of the status quo and the institutional actors maintaining such a system. Writing on the rhetoric of confrontation, Scott and Smith (1969) explain the genre of confrontational rhetoric is "inherently symbolic" and "carries a message" as it erases the divide between the discourse of a movement and the action of a sit-in (7). Simons (1969) extends this work and loosely sketches the parameters of the form as including "organized collective behavior ... employed by those who are either denied access to ... institutional deliberations or who are unwilling to rely exclusively on such vehicles" (166). Sit-ins directly oppose the current deliberations of the institutional status quo. Ledewitz (1990) asserts that the sit-in is necessarily a "represent [ation of] attempted persuasion" that, regardless of one's approval or disapproval of, is "always an appeal to the public" (86). At the heart of the sit-in lies an antagonism that announces how the existing order has failed to respond adequately to expressed concerns. The sit-in marks this failure and demands change.

As a form of argument, the sit-in is part of an oppositional logic insofar as it is situated within a set of activist tactics that interrupts the business of the status quo. The sit-in works first by representing publicly an oppositional collective. Explaining sit-ins variously as "body rhetoric" (Griffin 1964, 127), "performing] bodily" a movement's "eloquence and moral force" (Houck 2004, 73) "enactment" (Foss and Foss 2011,

221) and "perform[ing] collective presence" (Fuentes 2015, 30), scholars have established the legitimacy of understanding sit-ins as performances of the body. These performances transform a collection of individuals into a mass that disturbs the prevailing order. Greene (2004), establishing the parameters of political action, explains that "more radical visions of argument might include strikes, sit-ins, and boycotts in the rhetorical arsenal of good citizenship, and some might even flirt with violence as rhetorical action" (188). Ledewitz (1990) surpasses even these parameters by positing "nonviolent, illegal political protest" as a "compromise between mere argument and revolution" (80). At root, the sit-in symbolizes the need to interrupt business as usual, and warrants the argument of the sit-in via the embodied presence of its participants. The sit-in thus confronts the existing deliberative structure by positing an argument of a unified collective appeal to the public.

Moreover, sit-ins often are moments when activists are willing to imperil their bodies for the cause. Sit-in protestors use their bodies as arguments that mark the precarity of those engaged in civil disobedience in spectacular fashion (Butler 2004). Johnson (2007), studying King's Birmingham campaign, understands sit-ins as image events. Delicath and DeLuca (2003), analyzing radical environmental social groups, propose image events--"staged acts of protest designed for media dissemination"--rightfully should be considered a "form of postmodern argumentative practice, a kind of oppositional argument" (315). To be sure, sit-ins have long been considered acts of civil disobedience by argumentation scholars (Bruner 2003; Chamberlain 2004; Gorsevski and Butterworth 2011; Kelly 2014; Parker 2008; Powell 2002; Wanzer-Serrano 2008, 2015). Sit-ins, among other modes of protest, are...