Ali Husain


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“The Urgency of Intersectionality” by Kimberlé Crenshaw Response – Ali Husain

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In the video  “The Urgency of Intersectionality” by Kimberlé Crenshaw is talking about the way discrimination is deeper than just race. Which allows it to go even further into the sex of the person as well. Through her speech she is trying to show the intensity and impacts that this might have. She starts this off with an exercise that transitions her into the points that she is trying to make. In that exercise the names of police brutality victims are read allowed. They start from most to least heard about African American male police brutality victims to the African American female police brutality victims of which only four people have heard about. As Kimberlé Crenshaw stated, this exercise was done all over the country to all types of people and yet the response was the same. (Only a small number of people know about this issue.) This is showing that the racism and sexisum issues are overlapping and we need to show people importance of it.

To further enhance her point Kimberlé Crenshaw added the case of Emma DeGraffenried. Emma DeGraffenried was an African American women. Who applied to work at a local car manufacturing plant,but was rejected because of her race and gender. When she went to court to fight to be able to work at the plant, but the judge dismissed her case. The judge claimed that the plant had African American workers and female workers. The judge did not look at the fact that the plant had no female African American workers.

One area that intrigued me was when Kimberlé Crenshaw said that discrimination is deeper than race. Upon doing some research I found that with in certain ethnicities, there is also further discrimination between themselves. Weather it is between the males or females, or the north or south, and even if someone in the same race is darker than the other (as seen in some West African countries). All of these things are not right. People should not discriminate one another but instead coincide with each other and treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve.

 

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“Moving Beyond Pain” – response by Ali Husain

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In the article “Moving Beyond Pain” the author analyzes  Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade. With in the article the author mentions that there are enticing backdrops and Black female bodies were put in the center. “ black female bodies—placing them at the center, making them the norm “. Which is to represent how dignified Black female Bodies are through the use of symbolism. This also is to represent the sisterhood of Black females who have remained invisible and silent are no longer. Now they “resists invisibility, that refuses to be silent.” Which is challenging people to change the way that the black female body is seen. However the author also states that, “Among the many mixed messages embedded in Lemonade is this celebration of rage.” An example would of this would be the “ sexy-dress street scene.” This is showing that women always need to respond with rage to show domination. Not all Black females respond with violence and to say this characterizing them all as violent. On top of that, the violence in the video is made to look Eroctic and appealing. Showing and promoting violence is not a way to change peoples views positively of the Black Female Bodies.

 

One quote that Intrigued me was ““ Violence does not create positive change”. This quote intrigued me because through history it has been proven right and proven wrong. An instance where this is true is with Martin Luther King. He promoted the idea of nonviolence. Even though the whites were constantly attacking the blacks in violent manners. Eventually he was able to get his goal through, which was the integration of Blacks and Whites. One instance where this in not true is with the Revolutionary war. Great Britain at the time was not listening to the needs of people who were living in the Thirteen Colonies. Eventually the people in the Thirteen Colonies got fed up with this and started pushing back against Great Britain. This led to British redcoats and Colonist exchanging fire at lexington and Concord (which is Massachusetts) and marked the start of the Revolutionary war.

 

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‘Black Panther’ Is Not the Movie We Deserve

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Christopher Lebron’s interpretation of the movie “Black Panther” was interesting. His point of view and analysis was very different. It cause me to see the movie in a whole new perspective. When this movie first came many people were happy and excited that a movie came out, which showed the enrichment of African culture. As time went on people’s opinions of the movie changed. For instance in the he states, “he learns of the racism black Americans face, including mass incarceration and police brutality. He soon understands that his people have the power to help all black people, and he plots to develop weapons using vibranium to even the odds for black Americans”. Lebron goes on to state that how this was similar to another movement like the Black Panthers. Then killmonger and his father are shown as villains because they in a sense  wanted to help out others who were struggling. Lebron further writes that there were other shows with the same thing. “Cage must beat his brother to a pulp, just as Panther must kill his cousin” , but then in the Thor movies Loki (Thor’s brother) has done so many horrible things and causes misery and damage, yet he is always given another chance in another movie. This is not the case with the “Black Panther” and Killmonger. All Killmonger wanted to do was save the lives of black people everywhere and stop them from getting hurt.

 

One idea that intrigued me was when Lebron wrote “Rather than the enlightened radical, he comes across as the black thug from Oakland hell bent on killing for killing’s sake”. This intrigued me because I felt that this was true. There are many people in the world who have  great ideas that may be radical but because of their background won’t be seen as that. Instead they will be judged from where they live and their ethnicity.

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Ali Husain – “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” by James Baldwin – Response

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In “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is?”, James Baldwin states how language is important and how it has evolved over time. Baldwin writes “People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances or in order not to be submerged by a reality that they cannot articulate”(Baldwin 1).In other words languages are made to be able to converse our ideas, felling and concerns with one another. With difficult experiences and difficulties people evolve their language. An example of this would be when Baldwin mentions, “ Blacks came to the United States chained to each other, but from different tribes: Neither could speak the other’s language . . . and under these conditions, the slave began the formation of the black church, and it is within this unprecedented tabernacle that black English began to be formed” (Baldwin 6). The slaves were not all taken from one tribe but in fact from many different tribes. All tribes had different ways of communicating, so this created a language barrier between slaves. To amend this problem they created Black English. In hopes of increasing the rate of survival as well as building a community.

One quote that caught my eye was, “A Frenchman living in Paris speaks a subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in Marseilles; neither sounds very much like a man living in Quebec; . . . although the “common” language of all these areas is French”(Baldwin 1). All these countries or cities speak the same language which is French but yet none for the most part comprehend what the other is trying to say. This is because they all have different characteristics which allow them to form different identities. Not only is this true with french but other languages as well. For instance how different dialects of spanish are spoken in different countries. When the latin Americans speak spanish the people who speak castilian Spanish can not perceive what they are saying. The people who speak Andalusian spanish can not perceive the Mexican or caribbean spanish.

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Ali Husain response to “The Rhetorical Situation” by Lloyd F. Bitzer

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In “The Rhetorical Situation” by Lloyd F. Bitzer , he states that a “rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action”(Bitzer 4). This is showing that a rhetoric situation is a situation where one can bring change not through physical means per say but for instance, through speeches.  Bitzer further goes on to mention the three key elements of a rhetorical situation. They are exigence, audience, and constraints. Exigence is an issue that it is given importance and has the ability to change. Audience is the people who that author is targeting. Specifically people who have the power to change the issue. Constraints is made “of persons, events, objects, and relations”(Bitzer 8). They have the ability to regulate or control action needed to make the change. One idea that intrigued is when Bitzer said “it is true, of course, that scientists and poets present their works to audiences, but their audiences are not necessarily rhetorical”(Bitzer 8). On one hand when a scientist conducts research and gets results they eager to share it. They are not only showing people their discovery  but showing scientist how to repeat the experiment and build on it. On the other hand when scientist share their work they are trying to persuade people that what they did it correct and should be published. As well as trying to get funding for their field of research by showing that there are important and new finding in their field of research. Similarly for poets some can be writing poems to entertain people and have fun. While others are trying to a point across through the poems. 

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