For Tuesday's discussion, please read (thoroughly) the genre samples by Bullard and Obama. I will give us some analysis questions to work with during class, but for now, I ask you to note the following as you read:
- places where you see conflict and perspective most clearly
- places where you think you are either included or excluded as a reader
- places where you are convinced (as a believing audience) or not convinced (as a skeptical audience)
- places where one or more "ideographs" could be unpacked.
Please also bring Style and WWC (as usual) and, because we did not get to discuss Kaufer and Jones last week, please bring those articles as well. We will use these four texts as our principal tools for unpacking "race" and "policy" in the genre samples.
Added questions for each group:
BULLARD
How does Bullard's lecture present other possibilities for response than just dis/agree? Based on how he uses historical evidence, on what stasis level is most of his argument conducted? What are one or two key terms whose definition you think he means to challenge?
OBAMA
Added questions for each group:
BULLARD
How does Bullard's lecture present other possibilities for response than just dis/agree? Based on how he uses historical evidence, on what stasis level is most of his argument conducted? What are one or two key terms whose definition you think he means to challenge?
OBAMA
He never explicitly defines "race" for us in this address, though he presents a number of anecdotes about how it plays out in the lives of American citizens. What role do those anecdotes play in conveyin how Obama thinks we should feel about "race"?
Looking forward to it,
-Prof. Graban
The anecdotes convey the multidimensional constructs of race. His personal narrative about his heritage gives the audience perspective as he comes from a diverse background and was raised by different kinds of people. The Reverend Wright’s anecdote implies that racial slurs are often made, but should not be inductively reasoned. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.
ReplyDeleteCassie Hamilton
DeleteResponding to Obama's transcript we believe he presents a number of anecdotes that play a role in his own thoughts about race. Although Obama never explicitly defines race in the transcript he relates his own experiences to the text. Racism is evident throughout all different communities, even a divide in one particular type of race. Obama wants us to understand the reality of racism and not necessarily run from it. It's something that we can't afford to ignore but instead try to understand.
ReplyDeleteShay, Alex, & Stacey
Danae VanPortfliet
ReplyDeleteBrittany Stephens
Morgan Hough
BULLARD
He uses the stasis level of fact but he uses definition to misconstrue those facts.
The other response is that he is leaving it up to us. He hardly uses a stasis level of policy (what should be done about the issue?) His last statement says that this problem has been happening for a long time and leaves it up to us for what we think should be done.
Because of the gravity of the claims being made regarding how race affects government response, it seems superficial to just agree or disagree with the argument. Bullard mentions Homeland Security and emergency response groups, bringing the notion of discrimination into government processes and how race equates to power within the nation. In this case, power relates to emergency response time in the wake of disasters. Bullard says, “This is not some entity. This is not a corporation. This is the U.S. government, who you expect to treat everybody the same.” There is an underlying theme of policy change and the need to do so, rather than just agreeing or disagreeing.
ReplyDeleteBullard makes use of extensive historical evidence to support his claims of discrimination throughout his argument. This operates on the stasis levels of value and policy. The value of discrimination and how it affects people of different races and different powers is driving his evidence. This level affects the concept of government policies and how these policies, especially in disasters, are carried out in areas of diversity. Bullard means to challenge discrimination and how it’s still relevant or present in our modern government.
Amanda Diehl
Anneleise Sanchez
Obama believes that race should propel us forward as a nation, rather than make us stagnant. His stasis of value is present in how he rhetorically “heals” the separation of race denoted by Reverend Wright. Reverend Wright says that race is an ingrained self-belief in society unable to be changed. He condemns and upholds racism through remarks taken out of context. Comparing the bombing of Hiroshima and 9/11 on the category of race, without the different contexts of terrorism and war, does not lend itself to proper argument. These are gigantic issues with many generalizations. Obama contrasts this sensational method, with truer, small anecdotes. They “heal” Wright’s racist attacks by being their exact opposite. Obama is being idealistic, but also recommending a stasis of policy about remaining hopeful. “By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl [Ashley] and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children” (Obama 7). There is no change without the change of public opinion. If people define racism as a ‘too-pervasive” evil, like Wright, they submit to its power, and it will never be changed.
ReplyDeleteRachel Cushanick
Erik Reed
Tyler Avery
Rachel Young
Lindsay and Catalina's table
ReplyDeleteWe believe that Bullard is working on the stasis level of policy because he uses historic evidence of how the government has reacted and responded to show how the current procedure is bias toward people of race and needs to be changed. He shows this through his examples of how FEMA, Red Cross, and Homeland Security have failed to react to situations involving the African American community as quickly and efficiently as they would with the same situation involving a white community. He wishes to challenge the view of the Red Cross specifically, citing that in his community in Mississippi it is the "White Cross" within the context of his claim that they do not respond to their community like they do to the white community. By working through this stasis level he wants to show the audience how it is racially bias and to imply to the audience that there needs to be a change and it is up to them to do so, to inflict a change.
Bullard’s lecture presents ethical and moral issues that surround the response and aftermath of these disasters. He builds his argument on facts and historical evidence to parallel events similar to Katrina that has happened past. Keeping his argument on these lower level stases, Bullard uses this evidence to build the foundation of his argument on cause and effect. He notices the relationship between the disaster, the response, and the racial bias between the two. Bullard refers to the Red Cross as the “White Cross” and uses this ideograph as a way of implicating the relief organizations in the communities he is addressing as being racially biased. It is in this parallel that he can draw significant impact of racism he sees developing in the demographic and community of those affected by Katrina and disasters like it. He challenges ideas behind the Red Cross, of helping people in their time of need, and by making it the White Cross, he implies that relief can be racially skewed.
ReplyDeleteJenn Gaudreau
Donovan Todd
Nice work in 10 minutes, everyone!
ReplyDeleteHere is my offering from the "anecdotes" question that we put to Obama's "More Perfect Union" address. I thought some more about how we said he was (implicitly) defining race, or at least, getting us to think about race:
--as a color ("black man," "of every race and hue")
--as a location ("Kenya," "Kansas")
--as an ancestry (descending from "slaves and slaveowners," having "no acknowledged African ancestry")
--as a biology ("genetic makeup")
--as a story ("in no other country on Earth is my story even possible")
--as either the only aspect of identity that matters or as only one aspect of identity ("too black," "not black enough," "view my candidacy through a purely racial lens")
--as more than a binary opposition ("not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well")
This made me think that anecdotes are a large part of his strategy to appeal to readers to challenge accepted definitions.
I guess I'm encouraging us to look closely at the function of keyterms and keywords in public address so that we don't just edit them out indiscriminately, especially if they are supposed to help carry the argument.
-Prof. Graban