I have chosen as a text to read for my midterm EITHER a text from “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement” by Angela Y. Davis and “Throwing Like a Girl” by Iris Marion Young
Description/Summary:
Here is the text by Angela Davis – “I feel that if we don’t take seriously the ways in which racism is embedded in structures of institutions, if we assume that there must be an identifiable racist who is the perpetrator, then we won’t ever succeed in eradicating racism.”
This text is not necessarily personal but rather an important representation of how racism plays a role in America. Davis is simply explaining that racism is not just 1 person, or one component but it is systemic – that is, racism exists in “structural institutions” such as in education, in the economy, or in the government, etc.
The passage “Throwing Like A Girl” is about the discrimination against women in the world which has affected the way women live their lives. The text describes that the discrimination women have faced has shaped the way the women think about themselves which consists of having the mindset of not being able to achieve certain things due to the society they live in. Sometimes, they know deep down that they are capable of achieving certain tasks, however the society they live in does not allow them to actually complete the task.
Audience Speculation: For Angela Davis’ I would say the audience would most likely have to be the US population. While I would say white people would be the main target as they are the ones who would be the most unaware of systemic racism, it would be beneficial for the whole US population to know more about the systemic racism occuring in the US.
For Throwing Like a Girl, the main audience would have to be men around the world. While it would be nice to have women as the audience, their struggles of living would be better if it was written towards men as this world and society has been built for the men to succeed which has affected women in many negative ways.
Formal and General Conventions:
The first text that is similar to Davis’ writing is from ANDSCAPE written by Martenzie Johnson. It is about how Colin Kaepernick voiced his opinion across the NFL and how he was ignored by the NFL. This text is able to hook the audience through language as it mostly about how the NFL has apologized for ignoring systematic racism in the league. This article also supports Davis’ quote as this confirms that there is not just one person who is to blame for racism rather it is everywhere such as sports and the NFL.
The other text that I might use is similar to the “Throwing Like a Girl” passage.” This article was written by Eric Anthamatten from the New York Times. This article mainly describes Iris Young’s passage by including a story of a 13 yr old named Mo’ne Davis who is a pitcher and played in the Little League World Series. The author describes the passage and criticizes the way men have built this world for them to succeed and this has become a challenge for women to have success just because they are a woman.
Content: I intend to talk about the object in relation to:
- Racism in different situations such as sports, education, work spaces, and possible personal experiences.
- The way systemic racism has affected black people and people of color across the world.
- Sexism and the fact that there are certain “roles” that “only” pertain to the women in the world
- How sexism affects women’s mindset and how that affects their achievement in tasks
- How society has made women behave physically whether they are walking, sitting, or playing sports.
Course Thematics: I think that my object intersects/overlaps with class these ways: Discrimination towards a specific group and also identity whether you are man, woman, black, white, etc.
Questions: Questions I am trying to figure out are about how to tackle the analysis part of this essay. I feel like the content and the information I have chosen is very straightforward and effective but being able to summarize it and explain it in terms of language, structure, and vocabulary would be the question I have. I mainly have questions as to how do go about it and how do I start the analysis and summarization part of this
Works Cited
- ABC News, ABC News Network, abcnews.go.com/US/nfl-apologizes-listening-players-racism-colin-kaepernick-remains/story?id=71122596.Anthamatten, Eric.
- “What Does It Mean to ‘Throw Like a Girl’?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2014, archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/what-does-it-mean-to-throw-like-a-girl/.