Richard Rodriguez Complexion

In the essay “Color Lines” by Ralph Eubanks, the author explores the flawed logic of race from a scientific perspective. In the article, Eubanks explains the fact that a person cannot know the ancestry of another person or the nature of that person by looking at their race alone. Heritage is a much more complex concept than a simple racial categorization. In writing the article, the author sought to demonstrate that when looking at a person, you could not confirm their identity based on what percentage of a certain race they may have and that social construction meant to depict one group as being superior or inferior to another. This rhetorical analysis will therefore explore the importance of the rhetorical devices and strategies used by Eubanks to communicate with the audience.

Citizen, written by Claudia Rankine in 2014, narrates testimonies of systematic racism and every day micro aggressions through poems, essays, scripts and images. Rankine documents the racist encounters through the second person point of view for the reader to feel and understand the effects racism has on the body and mind. This paper will examine hypervisibility and invisibility of the black body embedded in the novel because of decades of racism. Rankine emphasizes the sensory emotions and feelings of the black body as a response to America’s reluctance to recognize and empathize with black men and women.

The book, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is written as a letter to his son. Coates cuts into the experience of the father as advice too the son. He writes this letter to his son to educate and awaken his son to the logic of white supremacy and the obstacles he will face as a black man this world. However, Ta-Nehisi’s son isn’t the only audience. He exposes the readers too the effect of racism on Black America, from history until present day. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a rhetorical analysis on Ta-Nehisi Coates’, Between the World and Me regarding his usage of ethos, pathos and logos to unveil the ongoing effect of the system of racism that continues to cause major problems to our society.

It has always been assumed that races have a certain look; a person can always tell what a person is by their mannerisms, their speech and the overall way they carried themselves even if they looked a certain way. However, this is mainly due to stereotypes that have long plagued our society and what one “expects” someone to look like just based on the negative connotations that are associated with skin complexion. When we read certain literature, the description of the character is the first thing that we look for as it is a way for us to somewhat bond with the character and attempt to see the story through their eyes. Toni Morrison’s Recitatif explores how the author describes each character not expressing their race leaving a bit of mysery to the reader and attempts to breaks down the stereotypes that exist for each race. Through a literary analysis, the reader is able to see those stereotypical assumptions about the color of one’s skin and how they should cease to exist in any world whether it is literal or figurative.

Wolff uses colors to symbolize a hatred for an alternative race in this short story. The

It is through the universal theme of racism that a symbiotic relationship between the old and the new text occurs, allowing insight, acknowledgement and understanding between the

Maya Angelou and Sherman Alexie detailed their lives as a person of color growing up in predominantly white America. When reflecting back on their lives, both authors used various techniques in order to effectively make an imprint on the reader of the trials and tribulations both authors had to go through and what they learned from the experience. By analyzing Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” and Maya Angelou’s “Champion of the World”, a stark contrast can be seen in how two authors can use structure and various other techniques to tell a story with a similar subject to a different effect compared to the other.

The articles written by Shakur, Schuppe, and the Pew Research Center utilize different literary techniques, such as ethos, logos, and pathos, to persuade their audience on the controversial topic of racism. All three articles provide readers with a differing view on racism in the United States today. By reading each article, the reader is acquainted with multiple concepts concerning racism and is then able to construct their own personal opinion.

For Shelby, it seems as though Garcia contends an individual’s “attitudes” not his or her “beliefs” are what make the individual racist (479). Still, Shelby maintains that “beliefs are essential to and even sufficient for racism” (480). Basically, Shelby argues that in order to determine whether a person is racist or not, the reasons for one’s dislike of another must be evaluated. Shelby gives the hypothetical case of Stephen (white) disliking Andre (black) because Andre was having an affair with Stephen’s wife. In this example, Shelby illustrates that Stephen’s derives his dislike of Andre from Andre’s behavior not his race (480). Thus, Shelby raises the question of what racism actually signifies. Rather than disliking someone simply on the basis of skin color, Shelby suggests that is has a “deeper meaning” (480).

These derogatory terms were used against Tayo and Night Swan as they differed from the Laguna people. Tayo and Night Swan are rejected by the white and Native populations, and it is determined they are tainted or dirty compared to those ridiculing others. Night Swan says, “they think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing,” which is why Auntie excludes Tayo from the family because of Tayo’s mother’s mistake to interact with white men (Silko 92). We see a change in this perspective in today’s society as we have interracial families, where race plays little to no part in determining a couple’s love for one another. However, we do still have families which believe their children should marry within the same race due to the fear of change within their own family.

Herman Melville is an author whose work has been so hotly debated by many people for many different reasons. One of his finest short stories that were criticized a lot was Benito Cereno and this paper is going to focus on racial profiling. He has written a lot and at the center of his most famous work, a juxtaposition of gender in America, an odd scrivener, and his much-discussed story of a slave mutiny in “Benito Cereno”; the meaning behind Melville’s work has remained mysterious. The reason there is so much contention about his work is that Melville was not writing as an all-knowing observer of American society, but as one of the masses trying to define an ever-evolving America. In Melville’s short stories, he used symbolism and characterization to define not only the one-of-a-kind America but also his own feelings of disillusionment and guilt living in a time and a place that he was able to capture beautifully through literature.

On April 16 of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham” while sitting in a Birmingham jail in Alabama. During this time Alabama was a place where segregation was prevalent, and Dr. King had nonviolent protests to bring to light these issues. This letter by Dr. King was written as a reaction to Alabama clergyman who was against his nonviolent protests and directed at them. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King effectively uses the rhetorical strategy of pathos to achieve his purpose of justifying his cause for protest, a model that can be applied to the upcoming portfolio project. Rhetorical Strategy

The author uses language as a tool to show the characters’ status in society as black or white. Various language techniques are used to display the classes of society. The words “blanker” (used by blacks to describe whites) and “dagger” (used

Citizen, written by Claudia Rankine in 2014, narrates testimonies of systematic racism and every day micro aggressions through poems, essays, scripts and images. Rankine documents the racist encounters through the second person point of view for the reader to feel and understand the effects racism has on the body and mind. This paper will examine hypervisibility and invisibility of the black body embedded in the novel because of decades of racism. Rankine emphasizes the sensory emotions and feelings of the black body as a response to America’s reluctance to recognize and empathize with black men and women.

Growing up, people realize that around the time of reaching a mature state, education has affected their personal family life in one way or the other. With that being said, in his essay, “The Achievement of Desire”, Richard Rodriguez headed towards a path where he was unconsciously distancing himself from his family and becoming much more independent than he had expected. Rodriguez gives the reader a sentimental idea of the two contrary lives he had growing up, the life he had as a child, and the life he has as an educated man. He continued believing in his aspiration of how benefits of education can remarkably outweigh the past struggles of both his family and himself. Like Rodriguez, I also, in the past, found some form of solitude