In the video “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” the orator Kimberle Crenshaw talks about the different amount of social problems many African American women go through. The cause for this is as Kimberle referred it to “intersectionality,” in which African American women are subjected to experience an overlap of race and gender. She discusses about this urgent issue and provides a real life scenario in which an African American women Emma DeGraffenreid whose claim was dismissed by a judge. Emma believed she was facing race and gender discrimination against the local car manufacturing plant. She was not hired because of her skin color and her gender, the judge who dismissed her claim did it purely because it is not completely true. However, it is known that most African Americans that were hired were men and the women that were hired was mostly white. Kimberle Crenshaw goes on by mentioning the main problem of this issue which is the “framing problem.” She explains how many people in our society fail to see race or gender discrimination which is as she explains “partial and distorting.”

Something that really caught my eye was when she started her speech with an exercise that involved her audience to stand up. She mentioned a variety of different names and the audience would either sit back down or stay standing if they recognized these names. Mostly everyone stayed standing when male African American names were mentioned, as soon as female names were mentioned only 4 people remained standing. By, doing this exercise her audience will realize how serious this issue is and how there should a change to this. As she said “if we can’t see a problem, then we can’t fix a problem.”

Throughout the article “Moving Beyond Pain” the author criticizes and analyzes Beyonce’s album Lemonade. In the album Lemonade the author Hooks talks about some positive aspects of the album by mentioning how there are  “positively exploits images of black female bodies—placing them at the center, making them the norm.” There are diverse visual representations of ordinary black females who are portrayed as if they are royals, but Beyonce was seen with a casual sports clothes which confused me a bit because if the other black females were seen as royals, then why wasn’t she. Hooks goes on by talking about negative aspects of Lemonade since it portrays black females as always being the “victim” which is not completely true in my cases. Adding on, there is also a portrayal of black females being violent when they are betrayed by their men. Hooks criticizes Beyonce for this and mentions how in general, violence is never the answer to “seize power and create self-love and self-esteem through violent acts”, but Beyonce fails to showcase this among black females. Instead there is a scene in Lemonade where Beyonce’s character immediate response to her man’s betrayal is rage in which the character destroys cars with a bat and destroys with “no shame”.

Something that I agree with Hooks is how the scene in Lemonade made violence look sexy and eroticized and how it is not a way to “undercut the prevailing cultural sentiment that it is acceptable to use violence to reinforce domination, especially in relations between men and women. Violence does not create positive change.” Violence is never the answer for relationships, there should always be peace among every relationships, there are times when relationships get into arguments but it should be resolved without violence involved.

In “Black Panther Is Not the Movie We Deserve,” Christopher Lebron discusses the reasons as to why the movie “Black Panther” is underestimating black American men. The place called Wakanda is a fictional place in Africa, where Wakandans’ are isolated from all of those who are anti-black racism. They are well aware of the dreadful treatment many African Americans have to go through in the United States. As Christopher mentions “a man of African nobility must fight his own blood relative whose goal is the global liberation of blacks,” there are two men T’Challa who is the leader of Wakanda and Killmonger who is trying to take away the throne of T’Challa. Killmonger who is seen as a bad guy just because he is trying to liberate his people from the racism they have to go through. This is an example as to why the movie “black panther” is underestimating black American men because Christopher Lebron shows us how there is a side where Killmonger is trying to set free African Americans and how T’Challa is just trying to contain his nation from white supremacy. This is where there has been many debates because the movie portrays the bad guy because he is trying to make a stance and urge for help to liberate African Americans.

An idea that interested me was when Lebron mentions “Even in a comic-book movie, black American men are relegated to the lowest rung of political regard.” In the movie a white men who is a CIA is seen as the one who helps save Wakanda. But, as for “bad guys” such as Killmonger was not even portrayed as a good guy, he was the one who was actually trying to help his people even if it meant there had to be violence involved. Despite his father being murdered by his own relative and being left in poverty by his family, he still gets no recognition whatsoever for at least helping to liberate African Americans which is outrageous and racist.

After reading “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” by James Baldwin, he talks about his definition and point of view of what language is. One of his main points was that language is a political instrument, he says “It reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity”(Baldwin). This conveys how language defines who one is based on the larger public or communal identity. In his definition of language, he views it as a way for a group to be allowed to define and express who they are based on other groups perspective of them. For example, he mentions “A Frenchman living in Paris speaks a subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in Marseilles,” this shows how these two different people living in different parts of France are viewed differently due to their different language despite of the common language in France which is French. Another main point of James Baldwin is when he talks about the differentiation between a language and a dialect. He supports this by saying “A people at the center of the Western world, and in the midst of so hostile a population, has not endured and transcended by means of what is patronizingly called a “dialect”(Baldwin). He defines a dialect as a simply version of a language that white people talk. He adds on by saying how black people back in slavery time deserved more than a simple version of the white language.

One interesting idea that stood out to me was when James Baldwin says “There have been, and are, times, and places, when to speak a certain language could be dangerous”(Baldwin). An example of this is when the attack of 9/11 happened, there were was a lot of hatred towards Muslims. People of the United States believed that any Muslim that lived in the U.S. were the ones to blame but in reality the main one to blame was the group of ISIS. Also, people became very uncomfortable near any muslim who spoke in their language and this turned into danger for Muslim people because many people of the U.S. wanted to separate themselves from the Middle East. This proves how James Baldwin saying that a certain language could be dangerous because any Muslim, Indian, or Pakistan would be treated unfairly, get the cops on them, and even get violently attacked by an American        

In “The Rhetorical Situation” by Lloyd F. Bitzer, he defines what a rhetorical situation is and the components that make up a rhetorical situation. Bitzer mentions how rhetorical situations is defined by “the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse”(Bitzer 1). One of Bitz’s main arguments is that there must be a situation for rhetors to come up with arguments. He provides an example of this by talking about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, this is consider to be a rhetorical situation in which it influences social actions. Bitz mentions the three main components that make up a rhetorical situation which are exigence, audience, and constraints. He states how “exigence is rhetorical when it is capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted by discourse”(Bitzer 7). This shows how exigence demands a proper response and it can be fixed by using rhetoric. The audience is an important factor because they are the ones who listen, interpret, and hopefully influence to enact a change. They are in between rhetoric and putting things into action. To add on, a rhetorical situation contain constraints which involves people, events, objects, and relations. These constraints have an effect on the audience and rhetor, when the orator enters the situation, the orator can have “ personal character, his logical proofs, and his style”(Bitzer 8), this can create a disconnection with the audience and rhetor.

One idea that stood out to me was when Bitzer said “If it makes sense to say that situation invites a “fitting” response, then situation must somehow prescribe the response which fits”(Bitzer 10). This idea is mainly advocating for the rhetorical response to meet the requirements that is included in the situation. The situation is mainly looking for “purpose, theme, matter, and style of the response”(Bitzer 10). There should be a “fitting response” that can satisfy the audience and answer any worries and concerns they could have. As well as everyone else who is part of the situation. To determine whether or not the response is “fitting”, the audience has the final say and see whether the delivery of it is to be considered as a fitting response. To summarize this, I believe that this idea is important because the audience plays a big role in this and they should be heard. Determining whether or not the situation has a fitting response, it allows for the audience to be heard since they are the ones being affected and the ones bringing a change.