In the powerful video, “The Urgency of Intersectionality,” Kimberle Crenshaw talks about the term “intersectionality” and how rather than simply race, people are often disadvantaged and hindered by multiple sources of oppression. The term is seen as different forms of social stratification such as race, age, religion, gender, social class, etc that overlap and often result in multiple levels of social injustice. At a point in the video she addresses a variety of names and the audience would either have stay standing or sit down if they recognized the names being addressed. Mostly everyone remained standing when the names of African American men were mentioned, however, when the names of African American women were mentioned only four people remained standing. She uses the term to describe the bias and violence women of color suffer. Kimberle Crenshaw considers the experiences of African-American women to be the target of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism. Kimberle Crenshaw also talks about framing which is a process of embedding events and topics in grids of interpretation and it shows us the problems that this can cause. As a solution, she points out the importance of an intersectional approach, she talks about the origin of this term. Her very powerful and emotional talk focuses on the challenges that discriminated people face as a consequence of their identities including their age, race, gender, etc.

In Moving Beyond Pain, author Bell Hooks analyzes the music video Lemonade, a song written by Beyonce. In one part of the critical essay, Bell Hooks credits Beyonce for the visuals throughout the musical video for positively praising the black female body. Hooks points out that in Lemonade the female black body is the center of attention throughout the music video and the artist, Beyonce, is not. She even goes on to say, “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.” Surprisingly, Hooks then goes on to say how the female violence, the misguided notions of gender equality, and the whole “sexy” theme did not cut out for this music video and just undervalued the whole concept. She says, “ simply showcasing beautiful black bodies does not create a just culture of optimal well being where black females can become fully self-actualized and be truly respected.” So basically this contradicts her entire thesis and confused me. But i understand her in the way how Lemonade shows that the woman is always the victim of a man’s betrayal and she always responds with rage. The author argues that this is not completely true, portraying black females in this manner acts as a stereotype. Mainly. Hooks criticizes Beyonce for her representation of black females in the music videos and goes through all its highs and lows.

After reading “‘Black Panther’ Is Not the Movie We Deserve”, his analysis of the movie was shocking and surprising in my opinion. Christopher Lebron’s review was unpredictable and unlike authors and critiques who praised “Black Panther” for so called promoting African American culture, especially black women, he argues that the movie does so but also devalues African American men. Throughout his review he brings the reader back to scenes and events that occurred in the movie, I myself had to re watch the movie in order to understand the review a bit better. When Christopher analyzed certain scenes and brought up controversial ideas, I viewed the movie from a different perspective, when I first watched the movie I never noticed any of the ideas he had brought up. For example, the scene in which T’Challa and Killmonger fight Christopher portrays the idea that, “. . . a contest between T’Challa and Killmonger that can only be read one way: in a world marked by racism, a man of African nobility must fight his own blood relative whose goal is the global liberation of blacks.”, from what I thought was just cool scene portrayed a lot of symbolism. Christopher also says this in his review, “Killmonger, however, will not appear in another movie. He does not get a second chance. His black life did not matter even in a world of flying cars and miracle medicine. Why? Perhaps Killmonger’s main dream to free black people everywhere decisively earns him the fate of death.”, this made me think about how other characters who have done worse things are given the chance to reappear in other movies, but Killmonger does not because he attempted to do something good for the African American people.

In “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is?” written by James Baldwin, he provides his perspective on what language truly represents. In James Baldwin’s op-ed, he states, “it goes without saying, that language is a political instrument, means, & proof of power”, conveying the idea that language brings people together. I believe he is trying to say that although there are different languages and different variations speaking all around the world, people share a common ground in understanding one another at a certain point. Baldwin says,  “People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances”, and this is exactly how and why Black English was formed. Black English was formed under historical events which occurred in America, which took part into developing this form of language. For example, he mentions that the white man never meant to teach the black man, the white man just needed them to understand them for the sole purpose of serving them. Black English is the creation of black diaspora. Another concept James Baldwin brings up in his writing is that language can be used not just be used for communication, but to classify people. It reveals the private identify of an individual as Baldwin states, and it can be used to identify people’s background, salary, school, etc.

In general, I was most intrigued by James Baldwin’s writing as a whole. As I read this, I felt the anger his words conveyed and you can really notice the emotion throughout the writing. He was angry at the fact that the white people did not want to accept Black English. He mentions that the white man never really intended to teach the black man, but only for the purpose of the black man being able to understand and serve the whites.

In Lloyd Bitzer’s article, “The Rhetorical Situation”, he brings up the elements that take part in rhetorical situation, he defines and breaks down his thoughts towards the circumstances in which rhetorical discourse is created. Blitzer states that rhetorical situations are defined by ” the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse.”, he also mentions that a rhetorical situation can change depending how people decide to respond to it. Blitzer provides a theory that consists of three key elements, exigence, audience, and constraints. Exigence, “it is a defect, an obstacle waiting to be done…”, however, it is not rhetorical when it can not be altered by human interaction, it is rhetorical when it is capable of creating positive change. Audience, this consists of the people who are capable of being influenced by the discourse, the discourse encourages change through the audience’s decisions and actions. Constraints are the people, events, and objects which may limit the change called upon by the discourse.

Lloyd mentions that “Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by the situation; the situation which the rhetor perceives amounts to an invitation to create and present discourse.” . This interested me when I first began reading this article because it made me stop and think. I realized that a change can not occur unless there is a situation at hand. The situation is what creates the discourse, rather than the discourse creating the situation. I found this is very relatable to issues going on in today’s world such as, gun laws, many protests involving equality for woman and minorities.

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