Traditional academic approaches to the study of rhetoric must be modified by those who explore the rhetoric of black Americans. Black rhetoric is inherently interactive, combining verbal, tonal, musical, and physical behaviors, whereas traditional white-oriented rhetoric can be viewed in terms of standard verbal and literary aspects of communication. Pertinent investigations of black communication must relate to the white-controlled communications media, which are components of a complex American consumer-technology system that imitates, absorbs, and neutralizes hostile or non-integrated phenomena such as student dissent and black protest movements. Areas which demand increased attention in this context include: (1) the interactive patterns of black rhetoric; (2) the interaction between black methods of communication and the white-controlled media; and (3) techniques by which poets, novelists, and dramatists depict the complexity of black communication and the tensions between blacks and whites. (Included are course outlines for three related courses on the subject.) (RN)