“Moving Behind Pain” analyzes and critiques Beyonce’s album Lemonade. Beyonce is a considered one of the most successful artists in the music business. Bell Hooks thesis is “…Lemonade is intent; its purpose is to seduce, celebrate, and delight—to challenge the ongoing present day devaluation and dehumanization of the black female body. ”  I personally do not listen to Beyonce’s music, but Bell Hooks describes her album very positively but not at all perfect. For example she says “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.” At points I felt Hooks was very contradicting,  she says that Lemonade promotes black females so powerfully and she makes sure it is known black women are powerful but goes on to state other parts of her album that do not do the job. Hooks says that in Beyonce’s album there is fantastical female power, and it promotes and celebrates rage. Isn’t that just adding on to the stereotypes of black women being violent? Hooks also goes on to say that Beyonce made “violence” look sexy which does not even help. I don’t really understand how it helps her thesis. I guess she should emphasize the work “intent”.  Hooks also goes on to say how Beyonce does not voice how men have to do the work to change both physically and mentally for violence against black women to end.

Beyonce is influential. Towards the end Hooks says “If change is not mutual then black female emotional hurt can be voiced, but the reality of men inflicting emotional pain will still continue (can we really trust the caring images of Jay Z which conclude this narrative).” She had many points but this particular part interests me. Can we not trust Beyonce as a black women because she stayed with Jay-Z, the father of her kids? Her critical essay made me want and not want to listen to her album all at the same time. Beyonce’s “intent” to portraying black women positive, is just as it is, an intent, from my understanding of Hooks voice.

Christopher Lebrons interpretation of the movie “Black Panther” surprised me. Less than a month of being out in theaters the movie, made a billion dollars. His analysis of the movies was very interesting and his point of view was different from most. Many individuals considered this a movie that promoted African American culture. The way he analyzed was as if this movie degraded it in a way. For example when he says “In the United States, he learns of the racism black Americans face, including mass incarceration and police brutality….., and he plots to develop weapons using vibranium to even the odds for black Americans.” He gave me a whole other perspective of the movie. We watch movies and we are quick to categorize the villain and the hero, and in this case there can be both.  N’Jobu, the father of Killmonger, were categorized as these bad guys. Yes, N’Jobu was using the vibranium to make weapons, but those weapons were going to be used to help African Americans against those who terrorize them. T’Chaka, HIS OWN brother ends up murdering him, leaving his son without a father. His analysis made me think. He also mentions how there always has to be a white savior. T’Challa was able to confide in a C.I.A spy, whose job is to be deceitful, but he couldn’t confide in his cousin.He couldn’t confide in his cousin, who grew up with no father. Instead he kills him. Doesn’t killing N’Jobu just clarify the stereotypes against African-Americans? T’Chaka, leader of Wakanda, kills his own brother, and refuses to aid the foreign who also struggle. “There is no reconciliation. Killmonger yanks the spear out of his chest and dies. The sun sets on his body as it did on Michael Brown’s.” The way he uses a real experience is powerful. N’Jobu was killed by his brother, and the movie ends with T’Challa killing his cousin. Killmonger meets the same death as his father. There was no saving him.

“If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” By James Baldwin, goes into depth of what a language is and what it represents. Baldwin makes a bold statement that he wasn’t trying to specifically argue about the language but the role languages play. He states “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. (And, if they cannot articulate it, they are submerged.)”. Languages come to life to be able to communicate and describe our thoughts and emotions to one another. Being put into situations where we don’t understand what is being said, we feel lost, almost like being under water. He says that language is also power and that language can be dangerous. He comes to say that it can reveal ones private identity, hidden hopes and can either disconnect or connect one to the community. Language gives us power we can mistreat, it can allow us to reveal things that are better undiscovered. In his writing what caught my eye is when he says, “ Now, I do not know what white Americans would sound like if there had never been any black people in the United States, but they would not sound the way they sound. Jazz, for example, is a very specific sexual term, as in jazz me, baby, but white people purified it into the Jazz Age.”. I agreed when he says this. Black people have influenced and continue to influence many people of different races, such as, how we speak, dress, etc. In this quote he is also saying that they made a foundation in which white people tried to make their own. He also states “The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in American never had any interest in educating black people, except as this could serve white purposes.”.  He feels that the only reason the white people taught the black people their language was so they can be slaves. It would be easier to command and push someone around if they understand your orders. In saying this he makes a point that a child can’t be taught by someone who doesn’t have the right intentions with him.

“A language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what the language must convey.”. This part caught my attention. It made me think about where languages even came from. He mentions in his writing how the whites educated blacks for the wrong intentions. It was brutal, they were only taught how to communicate with whites, to be taken advantage of. We use languages as a form of communication, we give words meanings, we give words placements, such as bad or good. We put words into categories. We convey with words what we want, whether it is good or bad. We hurt people with our words. And we make languages to separate one another, and make it known we are all not the same.

In “The Rhetorical Situation” by Lloyd F. Bitzer, he starts off by describing to us circumstances that we are able to recognize, such as “ethical, dangerous, or embarrassing”. In putting these labels we give no space to characterize rhetorical situations. Bitzer says “ What characteristics, then, are implied when one refers to ‘the rhetorical situation’ – the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse”. In saying this he’s making a claim we give a rhetorical situation, a meaning with too simplicity. A rhetorical situation goes deeper than it just being rhetorical. “Rhetorical situations exhibit structures which are simple or complex, and more or less organized” (Bitzer 11).  In reality what is a rhetorical situation? How can something simple but also complex, or more or less organized? Rhetorical discourse is described as “comes into existence in response to situation, in the same sense that an answer comes into existence in response to a question..” (Bitzer 5). Rhetorical is the outcome to an event. According to Bitzer exigence, audience and constraints are what make a rhetorical situation. Exigence is an issue, in which Bitzer describes as imperfect, audience is who the author or writer is trying to reach and constraints is what persuades the audience.

Bitzer writes “It is true, of course, that scientists and poets present their works to audiences, but their audiences are not necessarily rhetorical” (page 8). How can their audiences not be rhetorical? If a poet writes about an issue or a scientists shares research, and has an audience to reach out to, and a goal of persuasion, how is it not rhetorical? Bitzer adds all these meanings to rhetorical situation, but how can we label things as rhetorical and not rhetorical if they can be both simple and complex?