Persuasive Discourse Reflection

As American universities and colleges grow their demographics, diversity and ideas there is a continued and an accelerated debate regarding freedom of speech within these higher education institutions. College campuses are struggling to simultaneously provide a learning environment that is inclusive to traditionally unrepresented students while also providing an environment that allows for ideas to be challenged and debated no matter how offensive or controversial.

An alumni group, Check Your Privilege organized by Dr. Ja’Nina Walker, works to raise student and faculty awareness about privilege on a San Francisco campus and increase social equality. The group defines privilege as “unearned access to social power based on membership in a dominant social group.” The group desires to increase consciousness about privilege, especially in the among social justice influences. They work to bring privilege into regular public discussion and urge those with privilege to use it for public benefit.

Racial diversity is something that is often discussed on college campuses. As a student who self-identifies as a minority in more ways than one I often feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the subject of racism and race. However, often times when these issue are discussed I learn something new; this was the case when reading the articles this week. This week’s articles examined the issue of race from different perspectives. This allowed me to re-examine the issue in a fuller manner; it also allowed me to question some of my own notions that I hadn’t really challenged before.

INTRO: Prompt: What should “diversity on campus” mean and why? Hook: Does diversity help liberate narrow-mindedness? What exactly is diversity? To say that diversity is approached on school campuses is an understatement to the level of understanding in this increasingly globalized world. By its definition, “diversity” requires inclusion. Are school’s really working toward the inclusion of everyone? This means including color, national origin, socio-economic status, and sexual orientation. Looking at court cases and polls shown in the short articles, “Introduction from Place, Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America” and “The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality,” their approach to strengthening

"Because of the Civil Rights movement,new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody … Not just for blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asians and Native Americans; and gay Americans and Americans with a disability. They swung open for you, and they swung open for me. That’s why I’m standing here today—because of those efforts, because of that legacy."So many people died for everyone to be equal, Most people are treated equal. Only in some areas are people harassed or discriminated against. We are lucky enough that we've gained experience and that we've learned from our ignorance.The Three-supreme court case decisions influenced the civil rights movement by extending voting rights, making

According to John Swales (1990), there are six characteristics that are adequate and important for recognizing a discourse community. Firstly, a discourse community has standard public objectives that they strive to achieve. Members of a discourse community all share the same common goals they are anticipating to attain, and they do not have individuals with separate goals. For instance, the Salvation Army public goals are “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.” They offer spiritual, physical, and emotional service to the public, as well as the opportunity to donate. Secondly, a discourse community has various techniques of communication for members to correspond with each other. For

​A discourse community is a group of individuals who share objectives, customs, and experiences. Arguably, an individual may have several discourse communities. For example, the said person could belong to a running community, food’s enthusiast community, a family, and a student community, which is also a discourse community. In some cases, these discourse communities may overlap as they share commonalities. More specifically, is the English class as the discourse community where students share perceptions of the course workload and how these perceptions influence their grades.

John Swales (1990), professor of linguistics, defines a discourse community as an exclusive group of people brought together by a common goal. According to John Swales (1990), every discourse community has six characteristics that makes them a discourse community. Overall the group must have a shared goal, in which they communicate with each other through different genres and lexis they have developed; genres are different types of communication that the group employ and lexis is the specialized language utilized by that particular discourse community. They also tend to have a hierarchy within the group and require individual group members to truly participate to be counted as a part of the discourse community. (p. 471-73)

The use of persuasive rhetoric writing can be helpful in the working world, especially when you need people to follow you. Using Ethos, is a way to approach your audience by establishing common ground, instead of coming off as authoritative. Even if someone doesn’t have the same views as you, if you acknowledge their values and beliefs, it’s easier to persuade them, because they see you do care about their opinion. As I move forward in any form of communication it is important to keep that in mind, and next year I’ll being using it a lot as president of CAC. Being the president of club means you have to communicate with your members, and the general public. CAC is involved in getting others to help, with the biggest event we hold, Relay for Life.

Many of my life experiences have given me a glimpse of what it means to be in the margins of society. My family’s history of racism and poverty, my father’s physical disability, my experiences as a woman, and growing up in the diverse Bay Area with friends, mentors, coaches, and teachers from different backgrounds has opened my eyes to the disparities in society. When I was sixteen I had a particularly salient experience that awoke my heart and mind to the ideas of social justice. I was in Memphis, Tennessee for a basketball tournament and on our day off we went to the Civil Rights Museum, which was built around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We saw the counters from sit-ins, buses from the Freedom Ride, and learned about the systematic oppression of Jim Crow. I was confused by the hate and anger I saw but found myself clenching my fists with rage at the injustice of it all. Yet, what was even more powerful was sitting in the parking lot with my team and listening to our assistant coach, who was an African-American man, share his experiences of racism, how it shaped his identity, and his fears for his two sons. Our head coach then shared about her experiences as lesbian and the ways in which she was continually denied rights because of her sexual orientation.

However, insular concerns aside, the day of dialogue also offers a venue to vent concerns about inequality, divisions, and other issues that infiltrate the campus bubble and can cause tensions and anxieties. I think that since Franklin and Marshall has made a notable commitment to fostering diversity through the admission process, it also has the responsibility to make sure that talent is nurtured and voices are heard throughout their entire time at F&M. At it’s heart, the day of dialogue allows students to bring their personal stories, experiences, and ideals and share these things through conversation. The goal is that by

Right on the first page in chapter six it discusses the privilege groups discomfort about discussing privilege. Yes, it is true for so many and for those who don’t feel discomfort, I call you brave and open minded. But, it is a hard thing to discuss especially with a non-privileged group of individuals. I, for one also feel discomfort and defensive sometimes in those situations, and that could be from a number of different reasons. Whether it is because I feel guilty, ashamed, judged, etc. For this I will talk about race, for those who are white, we are born this way, we didn’t choose to be white and there’s nothing you can do about it. You were born into the privileged group here in America. But, it is something that we need to accept and admit to, we are the privileged group but, we don’t because of this nasty stigma about race. Race has turned into this sharp word that scares people when it is mentioned. We, as educators need to change the stigma of that word. We need to make it so people of privilege and non privilege can discuss privilege and race with out discomfort or being offended. In this class, our race discussion had brought up white privilege and at first it was not comfortable but, as you admit to it, the easier it is to discuss.

The Diversity and Pre-College Center recognizes the important of discussing sensitive topics. Each month we host an event called “Courageous Conversations.” This event is held for students, faculty and staff to discuss sensitive topics such as LQBTQIA, religion, gender roles, stereotypes/biases, etc. It is a safe and respectful environment where students get to share their thoughts and views on different topics. After reflecting on the past events, there was one topic I had trouble participating

Diversity has been an ongoing topic of discussion in the higher education setting. However, these conversations had always placed focus on race, gender, and religion; socioeconomic status tends to be overlooked (Ma, 2013). Ma (2013) found that discourse about socioeconomic diversity is neglected because many Penn students do not feel comfortable revealing their family’s income or financial aids. Additionally, social class is not as externally apparent as race or gender. Thus, it was pushed aside and ignored in