The pages in the second section were from seventy three too one-hundred fifty one. In this section the author used logos as her prime form of rhetoric to make her main point. She started by establishing credibility on page seventy-three and page seventy-four. She did this by showing her experience and expertise in the field that was relevant to this section of the book. Her accomplishments show that she had no lack of understanding and is well informed on the subject. She has taught many classes over the decades and she uses this to establish a very strong point of reference for the reader early on. Her main point that she goes on to argue is that whether or not white people intend to, they benefit from racism and therefore are racist by her operational usage of the word.
She starts her appeal to logos by explaining how racism is baked into our everyday lives by using an example from one of her students. The student in question was conducting an experiment where they asked a group of children in kindergarten to draw a native American. The children at first didn't know what that meant until the student rephrased it as "Draw Indians". To this the students all drew images that had things like feathers and tomahawks. When asked where these ideas came from the children cited things such as cartoons. The author uses this to demonstrate how little things can lead to vast misconceptions over time. If no one teaches those kids that is not what the average native American looks like they are going to keep that misconception with them the rest of their life and could eventually make them prejudiced.
The next point the author makes is along the same lines but the inverse of the last. She argues that not showing any imagery can lead to prejudice itself. The example she uses is of another student, but this one was asked to do something with black authors and couldn't, stating that it was not his fault that black people don't write books. This shows that not showing any media of people of color or any race can lead to wildly wrong ideas. Obviously, the student was not exposed to any black authors in their schooling career. This is a major problem that a lot of schools struggle with today and one of the last strong remnants of racism. Another example that the author cited was a student saying that Cleopatra was black. Another student said something along the lines of but I thought she was pretty. This is obviously racist but the student didn't realize what they just said was very problematic. The author uses examples like these to show that we are surrounded by racism and by default white people will absorb some of the prejudices around them. The author uses some very well reasoned points to appeal to the reader's sense of logos.
Hi Garrett, if I wanted to read those anecdotes you're including, what pages would I look at?
ReplyDeleteCertainly Tatum's credibility helps her, as her back ground in psychology gives her the ability to talk about individual's development. Do you see the stories she shares as strong enough examples to prove the arguments she's making?
Hi Garret,
ReplyDeleteIn your first paragraph you mentioned that the author implied that white people benefited from racism whether they mean to or not. The anecdotes you used definitely portrayed racial ignorance and a general lack of knowledge from a young age surrounding the topic, but how would that necessarily support the idea the white people benefit from racism? Perhaps they benefit from racism by simply not experiencing it? Also how does she define racism, as you said, "by her operational usage of the word"?
Hello,
ReplyDeleteWhile I am reading the same book as you, I haven't read your blog before. I like the examples that you used. I too, used roughly the same examples and I had some similar ideas for the analysis. I thought that her anecdote about the drawings of the "Indians," was to point out that small misconceptions wouldn't make them prejudice, but that if thoes views stayed the same and weren't corrected as they grew up, that it could lead to ideas that could be biased or too stereotypical to see the true group that the view poorly represents. How do you think is the best way to correct the views that Disney put out in it's older movies and how to correct harmful stereotypes?
Emily
Hi Garret,
ReplyDeleteI also thought that what Tatum wrote on how negative stereotypes in the media and in popular culture contribute to harmful prejudices and misconceptions was interesting, and wonder what you would consider as the solution to it. I also disagree with your saying that only white people absorb these prejudices around them growing up, it affects every child growing up in America as it is ingrained into popular culture, and can even cause Black children to think less of themselves, a phenomenon called "internalized racism" that the author herself mentions.