“Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray,  Tanisha Anderson, Megan Hockaday, Aura Rosser and Michelle Cusseaux.”  These are all police brutality victims, yet we only seem to know of the first four, the men, the people who are actually mentioned, the woman being clearly overshadowed and overlooked. What distinguishes the African American men from the African American woman? Some would say nothing, but this is not true. As Crenshaw referred to in the video, “when facts do not fit with the available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their way of thinking about a problem.” African American woman do not fit within the this “frame” they get filed away as just another black person so the issue at hand is never addressed.

Crenshaw delivered a speech in this video clearly discussing the often overlooked issue of the division between racism and sexism, which in reality coincide with one another. She goes into the issue that often racism and sexism are seen as two separate issues and are missed or not addressed when it is a combination of both. African American woman have to face this dual discrimination which is not recognized by the rest of the world. For example, she touched base on how a woman was denied a position at a job under the pretense that she was African American. However, her case was dismissed due to the fact this job hired African American men and white woman, so how were they discriminating against her if they hired both “women and men.” She had just experienced dual discrimination racism toward her being African American and sexism because of her sex/gender.

One thing I found truly intriguing was how powerful this video was due to the way Crenshaw delivered her speech. She spoke directly to the audience interacting them within every aspect of her speech beginning through conducting a survey with the audience to directly asking rhetorical and direct questions. Through these tactics she was able to build and go into depths about the dual discrimination that African American woman endure. This allowed me to come to the conclusion that to resolve/address this issue we as a society need to broaden the “frame” we need to realize there is more than what meets the eye. We, as a society need to progress and evolve into being more open minded and susceptible to realizing the different levels and depths of discrimination.

“The black female body is utterly-aestheticized—its beauty a powerful in your face confrontation.” Black female bodies in the video, as portrayed by this critical analysis, is shown to take back control in a sense. The author introduces the “how” throughout history and have been devalued. The reference to slavery and how women were “bought and sold” strengthens the idea of how, in present day, black woman bodies is as beautiful and powerful; “royalty” some may say, without excluding any body types or hair types. I found it very intriguing and interesting how the author calls attention to the misconception and shallow interpretation of the album. Many believe it to be simply about black women and solely to black women. However, the essay pulls apart the album and demonstrates the audience was meant to be the world. In reality, this makes a lot of sense because in our society we are guilty of this; taking away black woman value through objectifying their bodies. Although Hook portrayed the visual album to be a success she also addressed how she believed it failed. The author contradicts herself in this sense, which confused me as to which she agreed with or not. For instance when she stated, “It is the broad scope of Lemonade’s visual landscape that makes it so distinctive—the construction of a powerfully symbolic black female sisterhood that resists invisibility, that refuses to be silent. This in and of itself is no small feat—it shifts the gaze of white mainstream culture.” In my opinion this quotes means that women have to voice and at any means possible show that they are “powerful,” however this often fall into common stated things about them. I found it interesting because she wanted to demonstrate the “how” in the album but it had failed because although it did portray positive things about black women, it did not fulfill deliberating and delivering this exigence. It focuses only on the woman but does not focus on the change that needs to be made. Especially since Hook specified the audience goes beyond just black woman.

‘Black Panther’ Is Not the Movie We Deserve by Christopher Lebron presented a different perspective on the Black Panther movie. In his perspective the movie was a form of attempting to portray black empowerment, in a time period which our current president refers to blacks of “sons of bitches” whom should lose their jobs due to protesting police brutality. To deviate from the racism and integrating black culture is the purpose of creating these types of  movies. I found the portrayal of how strong women and the huge role in the movie. “They are the film’s brightest spot: the black women of Wakandan descent are uniformly independent, strong, courageous, brilliant, inventive, resourceful, and ethically determined.” This demonstrates the importance of woman and the role they played as empowered, I found this to be so interesting because often women are not placed in strong positions or roles. However, in Black Panther you witnessed gender equality because both genders recieved strong character roles. Many would believe that this movie was meant to show African culture and integrate it into society. The interpretation of how this movie was a basically a fail, interesting. He began through discussing how this was an attempt to diversify the culture of the prominently white cinematic super-heroics. However, that this was not the first attempt in which diversity within movies was presented and failed to be acknowledged or undermined.

His perspective completely shifted my point of view from a one sided view at the thought that it was simply just another movie. I realized that this movie had a bigger picture and message behind, I never really paid much attention to the logistics of the characters and the role woman played which was a deviation from the norm due to woman not usually being shown as strong. They usually are portrayed as fragile or delicate but they could be given roles of empowerment. As well as this raised awareness to me about how often blacks or people of color are excluded from cinematic heroes and are usually seen as villains but after reading this I was able to see both villain and heros.

James Baldwin’s op-ed “If Black English Isn’t a Language Then Tell Me, What is?” was a really insightful and astonishing piece. It was composed of Baldwin not only emphasizing but demonstrating the importance and the depth behind language. Previous, to reading this op-ed I was very narrow-minded about the meaning of language, to me it was simply a means of communication. However, throughout reading this op-ed it showed me that it was indeed so much more. As Baldwin stated, “The argument has nothing to do with the language itself but with the role of language.” Through this, he conveys that language is not just a verbal way of communication but it is a way African Americans built a community. A language is a form of identification or identity. His stance throughout the op-ed was that “black language” should be acknowledged as a language. It dates back to the time period of slavery, in which people of color “blacks” were oppressed by the “superior whites.” The slaves were transported as if they were chained up dogs, all emerging from different tribes who spoke different languages. They had no form of communicating with one another in these extenuating circumstances driving them to create their own language. According to Baldwin, “People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances.” Through this, he was trying to demonstrate that the means and circumstance are what emerges a language. The goal was and is survival it was sadly the “brutal necessity” of having to endure these circumstances and this struggle. Therefore, Baldwin wanted to call attention to the fact that giving into what is known to be the “common language” comes at the price of “one’s temporal identity.” He refused to allow blacks to define themselves by a (common) language that “has never been able to recognize him.” For blacks, their identities were something they intended to hold onto, therefore, through not acknowledging “black language” it completely undermines this.

“A child can not be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child can not afford to be fooled”(Baldwin 2). I found this line, in particular, to be very interesting because it went into the idea of how the white Americans generally had no interest in educating the black. The whites simply seemed to always have purely selfish intent on educating blacks. I also found it interesting that Baldwin calls attention to how it was not the person of colors language posed an issue, it is their experience.

Overall, I found the op-ed very interesting and intriguing to see how his stance could really develop and change my point of view completely on the importance of language and the evolution of it. However, I did find some of the phrasing and wording confusing due to the fact Baldwin used an abundant amount of figurative language. Although it had its confusing parts the op-ed sparked a lot of emotions and used pathos adequately to get its point across.

The article “The Rhetorical Situation” by Lloyd F. Bitzer explored and discussed the definition and different aspects of the concept of a rhetorical situation. Previous to reading this article, I was under the impression that a rhetorical situation was a moment in which the reaction to a situation was an anomaly. For example,  a serious situation such as a loss of a loved one being funny or taken lightly.  However, as I read this article Bitzer stated, “A work of rhetoric is pragmatic; it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself; it functions ultimately to produce action or change in the world.” To clarify, a rhetorical situation is a cause and effect; for the sole purpose of causing a positive change. It is composed of three main aspects: audience, constraint beliefs, and exigence. The audience is the person or group who you are trying to reach or get the attention of. Exigence “is rhetorical when it is capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted by discourse”(Bixer 7). Basically, it is something that is capable of a positive change. Lastly, constraint beliefs are basically what affects the audience, it causes the reaction and is what moves the audience to reform or make changes. One idea that I found interesting was that although the rhetoric is meant to have a positive effect or change not every situation can be fixed by rhetoric. Situations such as natural disasters, loss, etc are things that are inevitable and can not be changed. This puts a limitation to what a rhetorical situation refers to as he said it must be a situation with a “fitting response.” From my understanding, his perspective on this conveys that a rhetorical situation has to be present. For example, police brutality is an issue that is present and which needed to be reformed, through informing the audience it caused an outcome of protest and change. It can not be a situation that is sporadic or that something can not be done to resolve or change it. In addition, I found it intriguing the fact that Bitzer used constant repetition of different examples to emphasize the importance and distinction of what a rhetorical situation is. The examples gave a better description and painted a picture of his stance about rhetoric situations.