Rhetorical Analysis Of ' I Am ' By Assata Shakur

Most of the time, when we listen to a song, we don’t listen to the words, or what message they are trying to give us. Each song out there has a message in the lyrics somewhere. For this assignment, we were to analyze a song and the lyrics and find the thesis of that song. With thesis, I mean what the message within the song is trying to tell us. The song “I hope you dance” by Lee Ann Womack has a good thesis in some ways, but the thesis could also be argumentative also.

In “To My People”, a speech by Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army, explains her frustrations and disappointments on how African Americans were treated and more importantly how she was treated by white authorities in the US. Her story is that she was stopped on the turnpike because of a traffic violation in 1973 in New Jersey by Trooper Foerster. During this traffic stop, Shakur was accused of shooting and killing Trooper Foerster with his own gun. Shakur was soon convicted of first degree murder and quickly fled to Cuba. While in Cuba, she wrote and delivered a speech targeted towards her “brothers and sisters” about how unfair African Americans had been treated in the United States. Assata Shakur in this speech utilized a variety of rhetorical devices to emphasize her frustrations with the accusations by the hypocritical US authorities.

Oliver also writes in “African American Men”, “Research and public opinion polls of people’s attitudes and beliefs about crime reveal… greater fear of crime when in the presence of African Americans.” Modern day social medias also support the concept of unlawful persecutions, spanning from videos of beating or even obituaries, of African American men that can be a result of the perception society has of the potential threats African Americans may have in comparison to citizens of another

I commence with this anecdote for several reasons one of which is to humbly acknowledge my unique, and privileged position as a Black female scholar in the midst of a war waged against Black bodies. Another reason is to recognize police brutality as a national endemic that plagues Black communities, unveiling remnants of anti-Black racism that legitimately suppresses the lives of Blacks in America . The non-indictments in each case concerning the sanctioned murder of Black youths evoke a

Henry Giroux’s “Hoodie Politics: Trayvon Martin and Racist Violence in Post-Racial America” is an opinion piece written by a renowned cultural critic. This writing is meant to draw attention to the way American society treats its poor minority youth. Giroux’s audience in this circumstance is the readers of the left-wing magazine, The Smirking Chimp. With most of his readers being liberal, he does not have to try hard to convince them that his argument regarding the mistreatment of poor minorities is correct.That being said, Giroux is attempting to get his audience to consider the wider societal issues that cause the unequal treatment of black and brown youth. Giroux employs the case of Trayvon Martin to showcase society’s bigger issues surrounding the institutionalized racism directed towards the “disposable” colored youth.

This denotation to the silent cries supports for an emotional appeal to an example of the silent cries in African American women. As stated in the title, Powell is aware that black women are merely being betrayed in the hip-hop industry and simply states that the choice of words that hip-hop artist chose to rap about is simply “the ghetto blues, urban folk art, a cry out for help.” (298) and it is rubbing off on almost every man in our American society and giving them a different perspective of women all because women refuse to speak out and speak up. “As a result, female rappers are often just as male-identified, violent, materialistic, and ignorant as their male peers.” (298). Over 100 years ago, women were not even allowed to vote, the closest they got to voting was sitting there and watching. They were not allowed to work, they were forced to be stay at home wives while their

Assata shakur was a member of the Black Panthers movement and was the most wanted person by the FBI. She was charged with first degree murder, assault, and battery of a police officer because of her activism, which brought resentment against her. This compelled her to move to Cuba, where she still lives today. She’s also Tupac Shakur step aunt. In “To My People “, she expresses her discontent about the white man 's position in society that allows them to manipulate and oppress the black man. She commands the colored men to advocate, assemble, to fight for their rights, and freedom because the american society and law enforcement are corrupted. She

Throughout American history African Americans have been racially profiled as criminals and thugs for many years by other ethnic groups. Brent Staples, a journalist talked about his experiences being falsely labeled as a criminal by many, in his article written in 1986 titled, “Just Walk On By”, originally published in Ms. Magazine. Staples begins to build his credibly by using personal facts, testimonies, and using several emotional appeals.

Throughout history, black people have been hurt and battered physically, mentally, and emotionally by white people and those who believe they are superior. From the beginning of the 19th century to the ongoing 21st century, black identity has evolved in accordance to the struggles African Americans are facing at the time. From the abolitionist movement to the Black Lives Matter movement, the evolving issues facing black identity in the struggle for equality and constitutional rights can be seen through the literature and writing by the black leaders of the time.

While there has been tangible progress made in race relations, inequalities still tarnish the country. In poor black communities across the nation, the lack of opportunity stifles potential and creates a cyclical chain of poverty and violence. Areas with high black populations struggling with violence and unequal policing, have prompted a modern civil right movement called “Black Lives Matter.” Critics of the movement often cite, the supposed inherent inequality in the idea. All lives matter, they argue, why should black lives matter specifically? The movement, however, does not argue that black lives matter more than lives of other races, the movement is saying that black lives matter just as much. Furthermore, it’s an exclamation, that calls for attention to be placed on communities ravaged by violence and poverty that are disproportion black. Similar to the movements of the 1960’s, the BLM movement is causing tension across the country. Like king argued, tension is the catalyst that inspires change and conversation. The nonviolent protests of BLM, seek to “dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored;” that is the “work of a nonviolent resister” (1310). Just as the march that was depicted in Selma, the BLM has sought to seek change without violence, but instead with protests and media campaigns. BLM methods parallel King’s use of non violent protest, in a

All across the nation, in the news the black community has been making their voice heard, in regards to white police brutality, and murder against the unarmed black community. Many of these brutal attacks and flat out murders of unarmed black people haven’t been largely prosecuted, some officers have even been acquitted of any wrong doing or murder. This has led to outrage in the African American community at large. The shooting of an unarmed black teen named Michael Brown caused the racial strain in this country to break.

The professors use hard hitting facts that demonstrates the truth behind African Americans and the way the law enforcement perceives them, giving the reader some distinctive insight. The history of the law enforcement along with the criminal justice system has portrayed that they are disproportionality race-based. Blacks are more likely than whites to be racially profiled (Staples 2011), to be stopped by law enforcement, and receive harsher sentences. Unfortunately, it has been shown time and time again that judges, jurors, and the law enforcement finds it challenging for them to sympathize with African Americans. All in all this body of academic work has highlighted external factors that have shaped the lives of Blacks in America without giving due attention to the words of Rodney King, the man who became the face of racial injustice (Chaney and Robertson 2014). Four themes were unveiled in the analysis King’s quotes: appreciation for the struggles of former Civil Rights Activists, appreciation for the legal system, personal feelings related to police brutality, and the desire for non-violence as a catalyst for positive

A number of recent investigations have concluded that news programs often systematically misrepresent black Americans as perpetrators of crime and whites as victims of or defenders against lawbreaking (Dixon 1). According to those investigations by Dixon and Linz (2000a), “Blacks were twice as likely as Whites to be seen as perpetrators, six times more likely to be portrayed as perpetrators than officers, and overrepresented as criminals.”

Leslie McFadden is the mother of the eighteen-year-old boy, Michael Brown who was killed by a police officer back in 2014. After her son’s death, Mrs. McFadden has traveled nationally to speak on behalf of her son and seek justice. This past October, Mrs. McFadden shared her testimony at the black studies conference in UT Austin, where she was described as a “wife, fighter, and believer in hope.” At the conference Mrs. McFadden discussed different themes such as the institutionalized racial segregation and violence she and many face in Ferguson. The nightmare of racial hatred is not a thing of the past but a present reality. Her strong will to move forward and to speak the truth makes Mrs. McFadden this generations Mamie Till. Through her personal experience Mrs. McFadden connect with the audience at a level a textbook can’t and encourages them to be vocal against injustice.

In the article, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander vigorously argues the means in which the American prison system has become a redesigned form of disenfranchisement for poor people of color, while comparing it to the racially motivated Jim Crow laws. Alexander begins the article by making powerful assumptions about the readers; she states that “[racial caste] is [the subject] that most Americans seem content to ignore”. Although this may offend the readers, she includes a personal narrative explaining her initial disbelief to the “new racial caste system” and by doing so, Alexander displays how easily it is for one to deny controversial issues on race without proper knowledge on the subject. Moreover, the use of personal narrative makes