A chance.

    Hey everyone! This is my final Action Project for my Rhetoric class! This unit was a fair bit shorter compared to the last ones, but we got some good information out of it. One thing that was pretty cool was that we were able to visit Sterling Bay, a design firm that focuses on developing the less known areas in towns and making them more popular. It was our only FE, but it was a fun one nevertheless. Almost immediately we started to work on our APs, which were in the realm of rhetorart: the idea that art and rhetoric can be combined together. This is my poem, "A chance". Enjoy!

You see me

You see a teen

You see a black teen

You see a black teen with a lot on his mind

You see a black teen with a lot on his mind and doesn’t know how to express it

It’s a weird world we live in, because that same black teen?

To some he could be a criminal

To some he’s a part of a gang

To some he’ll never be anything

It’s kind of funny too

Other minorities will view others as snakes

Not trustworthy, not deserving

Even to their own they’ll turn their backs to them

It don’t matter if they’re black, bi, or nonbinary

This happens everywhere

It makes

Me

Sick.

Why do we have to act like this?

Why is this our reality? 

We hate oppression yet oppress each other at almost every turn

We want unity but don’t see the divisions that stop us

We just want to be seen as people but sometimes can’t even treat each other with respect

Why?

Why do we go against each other?

Why do we have people tell us who we are?

Why do the higher-ups have to tell us what we’re worth? 

Who are they to give us worth?

We aren’t some cattle to herd

We have power

We have the people

We have a chance

A chance to be better

We just have to stand together.

Author’s note: 

Hi, my name is AR and I’m an African-American teen. I chose the topic of how races interact with each other and how we sometimes keep each other down, the idea that we keep each other from becoming better as people. The main reason I chose this topic is because, as a person living in the US, I often see the division of people on issues that cause rifts in relationships so wide. Not only in the black community where I’m most attuned to, but in other communities like the LBGTQ+ community. There’s so much strife and I wanted to say that we shouldn’t be tearing each other down because it doesn’t help any of us. We should be trying to stand with each other, showing up for each other and congratulating each other when one of us makes an advancement. We should be willing to help each other when we make a mistake, making sure we can learn from each other and that experience.What’s happened and continues to happen is that we’re just crabs in a barrel - we keep dragging each other down without making any progress.

The medium I chose was slam poetry. Not only do I enjoy writing in general, but I also wanted to create something with the written word. It’s a medium that I enjoy exploring, and it’s something that can be manipulated into what you want it to be, as long you know what you’re doing. This helps my message a lot because it uses the written word to express emotions that couldn’t be expressed through just spoken words. It’s what I want to say, but I just didn’t know how to say it until I started to write it down. A lot of what I used throughout was repetition and imagery. I used repetition to show how these issues keep on coming up, again and again, persisting in our society and communities. How they keep on coming up and plaguing us, never truly getting resolved. The use of imagery in the first prose was to show how some people might see someone like the person described. How someone can get judged harshly by just existing. It’s something that needs to be worked on by everyone, not judging people just because they’re a part of a certain group. There’s also some rhetorical appeals as well. The ethos comes from my experience as an African-American and how I’ve seen a lot of what’s been happening. Pathos comes in the 3rd prose, where I try to get the reader to feel the desperation I and others feel. For logos, here are some facts for you: 

• The wage gap between white and black households in wages was measured to be around 33k in 2021 (Patel)

• In October 2022, universities like Harvord and UNC were put on trial because they discriminated against Asian and white applicants (Anderson)

• According to the Commonwealth Fund, those of minority groups are more likely to receive lower quality care. (Hostetter)

If I were to have some ideal place where I could show my work, I’d first like to do it live in front of an audience. Maybe not a big one, but somewhere that I can be heard well. I do this first because, in front of a live audience, I can have a lot more impact. It’s being heard by you in person, so it’ll help give it more oomph than it would have. Then, I’d want it to be a recording anyone can come back to. This is just for ease of access, so that if anyone wants to come back or listen to it and can't see it live, it’ll always be there for them.

Works Cited

Anderson, Nick. “How Is Affirmative Action Used in College Admissions?” Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/24/college-admissions-affirmative-action-race/#UC5I6ODJI5HENAZGYZGWISLZAQ-0. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022.

Hostette, Martha, and Sarah Klein. “In Focus: Reducing Racial Disparities in Health Care by Confronting Racism.” Www.commonwealthfund.org, 27 Sept. 2018, www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/2018/sep/focus-reducing-racial-disparities-health-care-confronting-racism#:~:text=Compared%20with%20whites%2C%20members%20of.

Patel, Nick, and Susan Svrluga. “Wharton Professor Discusses the Economics of Racism.” Penn Today, 21 May 2021, penntoday.upenn.edu/news/wharton-prof-discusses-economics-racism.