WildFire
23-02-2004, 06:24
This is my rhetorical essay. It is directed (I read it aloud) towards an Advanced English 11 class. Thoughts and opinions appreciated but remember this is NOT AN INVITE TO BE A RACIST. And please, don't just post to post, actually read the thing.
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Neo-Racism
Racism is a topic sometimes considered out of bounds and is implemented deep into American society. I’m not sure how many in this room have been accused of racism or see it in action, but realize this; you’re not alone. Racism in this school is out of control but not in the way commonly perceived by the world. The racism of modern times is not white prejudice towards minorities; its minorities towards whites. I say this for quite a few reasons. How many times have you seen a white kid in this school harass a black kid compared to a black kid harassing a white kid? And yet, whenever this topic arises, the white person is almost always labeled as the racist, and the victim is usually the minority.
Of course, throughout the 19th and 20th century certain minorities in the United States, faced a harsh time with slavery still in the back of some peoples mind and some still discriminated against blacks. Other groups, like latino’s, were like the African Americans and enjoyed little rights, if any at all. This all changed in the United States during the 1960’s with leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and his life, and death, was dedicated to one cause; trying to create a nation that would not judge a person by the color of their skin, but by their personality and their character. This succeeded somewhat as minorities were given rights they never had before and they were able to vote and find jobs with “equal” opportunity. This led to the “freedom” of minorities and people accepted this. There is still some hatred is parts of the United States but they are in far minority now, as groups like the KKK has been almost demolished and other groups aren’t as extreme as the KKK was.
But then, around the 1990’s, things started to change for the black population and other minorities. Rap music became more popular and more mainstream. Rolling into the 2000’s and up to this year, rap has become increasingly violent with its images of violence, guns, drugs and cash made from illegal activities. Every video is the same for rap, which only strengthens the stereotypical thought of the African American race. The only thing that makes rap songs different from one another is the lyrics, if they can pass as lyrics, that is. The basis for a rap video is as follows; a plain, monotonous rhythm that is done through a computer or some digital machine. After the basic sound is finished, a rapper or a group rap, they don’t really sing, about drugs, money and how they’re going to kill people. To add to this, every video had to be filled with women depicted as objects, which surprise me that feministic groups haven’t spoken up about this. Women, except for the few rappers that have made it big, are in now way respected in the videos are in any way by rap. They are shown as objects of the main rapper by doing whatever they are commanded are just acting “sexy”. Throw this together with a few catchy but meaningless lyrics and you now have a top ten song that will be heard throughout the country and might even get played on MTV, if they even show videos anymore. I agree that a faction of these rappers don’t follow this image but the general follows this.
You’re probably thinking what this has to do with neo-racism. Think about this; who does the typical black kid idolize? They look up to famous people of their color, in this case famous black people. But not all of these people are looked up to. People like Tiger Woods or Muhammad Ali because they aren’t really black. By this I mean they don’t show off all the “bling bling”, also known as money, they idolize people like 50Cent, Nelly, Ron Artest (one of the most aggressive and violent players in the NBA) and countless others. An example of the violence that portrays these “idols” is the 50Cent website. It plays his song when loaded, that’s fine, but the imagery is downright idiotic. It shows him pointing a gun at the direction of the viewer. Is this a subtle message of threat? Or some poorly thought web design? I believe it’s directed at the general public that watches buys his music and watches his music. It gives the people a tough guy, he is known as an underground hero, that isn’t afraid of nothing. This is bad because it makes people susceptible, namely high school students, to these images and could make them think that this type of attitude it alright. Now what do all these “idols” have in common? They are rich of course. They can buy anything they want, from women to cars to the most expensive hotel suites. Most of the time, the history’s of these people is that they sold drugs or fought in gang wars and glorified these things, making them seem that drive by shootings and shooting dope is a good thing. Of course, a lot of the time, these rappers just made it big by signing on to rap labels and got a posse together or went solo and toured the country. After they make it into the limelight, the kids start following these examples. When you meet this kids at school, you aren’t going to talk to a Tiger Woods, you’re going to meet a kid that pretends he lives in Harlem and has a thick New York accent even though he hasn’t left Connecticut all his life. The typical kid trying to pull off the thug appearance wears those bulky jackets when its 60 degrees out because it’s cool. Our generation, as correctly labeled by the one before it, is faltering because there is no stability and no real role models that we can follow like there has been in the past. Ali in his prime was a terrific person to try to aspire to, as was Neil Armstrong or J.F.K. Many white kids do not like these rappers or the images that they project and thus are labeled racist by the black population, just because they don’t like one aspect of a certain race. This is what we’ve gotten too. If you don’t like a black person, you’re racist. Even if you have ten other friends that happen to be that color, it doesn’t matter to the accusers. The Crucible, with the witch craze, and Michael Jackson, his continuing problems with children (child abuse), have both shown that one thing can be said and you’re labeled for life. This is another example because once you’re labeled a racist and that flows throughout the school or wherever you happen to be, it’s hard to get rid of, if not impossible. I was at Better Valu, where I work, and I refused to get cigarettes for a black person because he had no valid ID and looked to be under 27 and told him I couldn’t and wouldn’t make the sale. He looked appalled as if he didn’t know it was a rule said it was because of his color. He then said I was a cracker and a “n” hater. I stood there thinking to myself, wondering how some people can be so ignorant. Of course, he was probably thinking that since he was black, I was stereotyping him to be underage and he was trying to get them illegally. I must admit that I was thinking that but why would I not? The stereotypes created by the media and even the ones in out school makes people have to think this. It isn’t entirely the white populations fault that we are almost made to think these thoughts.
Racism is such a horrific word that’s being tossed around too much. Nonetheless, it is being used but is slowly being replaced with an word that has lost almost all of its meaning. This is one of the most used words nowadays too, and this is just awful because of what it implies. The problem is that most of the users of the word does not know what it means and use it freely because of this reason. It’s even worse with the word that was, only 40 years ago, considered horribly offensive. This word, which I refuse to put on this paper, is the “n” word. This word is thrown around so much, it’s almost like people have forgotten what kind of violence and hate it brought when it was in full force. In more modern times, the word is used nonchalantly and is probably now considered a synonym for brother or sister. What does it even mean? In its most recent form of use, that would be slang, its definition could be defined as “a little-valued citizen.” Why use this word on another when it has a degrading meaning? It’s even worse when a white person uses it, as many in this school do, because they have even less knowledge of the word and only use it to look cool. Out of all these though, the worst is when a black person is calling a white person the “n” word. What to say? How to respond and act? I saw a black girl call a white girl, who, seconds earlier, looked briefly at the black girl, the “n” word, multiple times until she was out of earshot (which was a long way away). I just stood there dumbfounded as if I knew I should so something but didn’t know what to do. She just laughed to herself. The victim was visibly blushing and trembling, in rage or embarrassment, who knows. This is getting to be the norm throughout the school, black on white racism. It disgusts me that people would do this to each other, especially after so much history with the subject. Even though the history of white people dominating the black race through slavery is a horrific tragedy that can’t be undone, it doesn’t give them the right to act the way they do today.
After reciting this paper in front of you, I know some of you are still unconvinced and that’s fine. It’ll take awhile before anyone realizes what kind of world we’re living in today, and how long these racist feelings will last; only time will tell.
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My conclusion: The media kills.
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Neo-Racism
Racism is a topic sometimes considered out of bounds and is implemented deep into American society. I’m not sure how many in this room have been accused of racism or see it in action, but realize this; you’re not alone. Racism in this school is out of control but not in the way commonly perceived by the world. The racism of modern times is not white prejudice towards minorities; its minorities towards whites. I say this for quite a few reasons. How many times have you seen a white kid in this school harass a black kid compared to a black kid harassing a white kid? And yet, whenever this topic arises, the white person is almost always labeled as the racist, and the victim is usually the minority.
Of course, throughout the 19th and 20th century certain minorities in the United States, faced a harsh time with slavery still in the back of some peoples mind and some still discriminated against blacks. Other groups, like latino’s, were like the African Americans and enjoyed little rights, if any at all. This all changed in the United States during the 1960’s with leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and his life, and death, was dedicated to one cause; trying to create a nation that would not judge a person by the color of their skin, but by their personality and their character. This succeeded somewhat as minorities were given rights they never had before and they were able to vote and find jobs with “equal” opportunity. This led to the “freedom” of minorities and people accepted this. There is still some hatred is parts of the United States but they are in far minority now, as groups like the KKK has been almost demolished and other groups aren’t as extreme as the KKK was.
But then, around the 1990’s, things started to change for the black population and other minorities. Rap music became more popular and more mainstream. Rolling into the 2000’s and up to this year, rap has become increasingly violent with its images of violence, guns, drugs and cash made from illegal activities. Every video is the same for rap, which only strengthens the stereotypical thought of the African American race. The only thing that makes rap songs different from one another is the lyrics, if they can pass as lyrics, that is. The basis for a rap video is as follows; a plain, monotonous rhythm that is done through a computer or some digital machine. After the basic sound is finished, a rapper or a group rap, they don’t really sing, about drugs, money and how they’re going to kill people. To add to this, every video had to be filled with women depicted as objects, which surprise me that feministic groups haven’t spoken up about this. Women, except for the few rappers that have made it big, are in now way respected in the videos are in any way by rap. They are shown as objects of the main rapper by doing whatever they are commanded are just acting “sexy”. Throw this together with a few catchy but meaningless lyrics and you now have a top ten song that will be heard throughout the country and might even get played on MTV, if they even show videos anymore. I agree that a faction of these rappers don’t follow this image but the general follows this.
You’re probably thinking what this has to do with neo-racism. Think about this; who does the typical black kid idolize? They look up to famous people of their color, in this case famous black people. But not all of these people are looked up to. People like Tiger Woods or Muhammad Ali because they aren’t really black. By this I mean they don’t show off all the “bling bling”, also known as money, they idolize people like 50Cent, Nelly, Ron Artest (one of the most aggressive and violent players in the NBA) and countless others. An example of the violence that portrays these “idols” is the 50Cent website. It plays his song when loaded, that’s fine, but the imagery is downright idiotic. It shows him pointing a gun at the direction of the viewer. Is this a subtle message of threat? Or some poorly thought web design? I believe it’s directed at the general public that watches buys his music and watches his music. It gives the people a tough guy, he is known as an underground hero, that isn’t afraid of nothing. This is bad because it makes people susceptible, namely high school students, to these images and could make them think that this type of attitude it alright. Now what do all these “idols” have in common? They are rich of course. They can buy anything they want, from women to cars to the most expensive hotel suites. Most of the time, the history’s of these people is that they sold drugs or fought in gang wars and glorified these things, making them seem that drive by shootings and shooting dope is a good thing. Of course, a lot of the time, these rappers just made it big by signing on to rap labels and got a posse together or went solo and toured the country. After they make it into the limelight, the kids start following these examples. When you meet this kids at school, you aren’t going to talk to a Tiger Woods, you’re going to meet a kid that pretends he lives in Harlem and has a thick New York accent even though he hasn’t left Connecticut all his life. The typical kid trying to pull off the thug appearance wears those bulky jackets when its 60 degrees out because it’s cool. Our generation, as correctly labeled by the one before it, is faltering because there is no stability and no real role models that we can follow like there has been in the past. Ali in his prime was a terrific person to try to aspire to, as was Neil Armstrong or J.F.K. Many white kids do not like these rappers or the images that they project and thus are labeled racist by the black population, just because they don’t like one aspect of a certain race. This is what we’ve gotten too. If you don’t like a black person, you’re racist. Even if you have ten other friends that happen to be that color, it doesn’t matter to the accusers. The Crucible, with the witch craze, and Michael Jackson, his continuing problems with children (child abuse), have both shown that one thing can be said and you’re labeled for life. This is another example because once you’re labeled a racist and that flows throughout the school or wherever you happen to be, it’s hard to get rid of, if not impossible. I was at Better Valu, where I work, and I refused to get cigarettes for a black person because he had no valid ID and looked to be under 27 and told him I couldn’t and wouldn’t make the sale. He looked appalled as if he didn’t know it was a rule said it was because of his color. He then said I was a cracker and a “n” hater. I stood there thinking to myself, wondering how some people can be so ignorant. Of course, he was probably thinking that since he was black, I was stereotyping him to be underage and he was trying to get them illegally. I must admit that I was thinking that but why would I not? The stereotypes created by the media and even the ones in out school makes people have to think this. It isn’t entirely the white populations fault that we are almost made to think these thoughts.
Racism is such a horrific word that’s being tossed around too much. Nonetheless, it is being used but is slowly being replaced with an word that has lost almost all of its meaning. This is one of the most used words nowadays too, and this is just awful because of what it implies. The problem is that most of the users of the word does not know what it means and use it freely because of this reason. It’s even worse with the word that was, only 40 years ago, considered horribly offensive. This word, which I refuse to put on this paper, is the “n” word. This word is thrown around so much, it’s almost like people have forgotten what kind of violence and hate it brought when it was in full force. In more modern times, the word is used nonchalantly and is probably now considered a synonym for brother or sister. What does it even mean? In its most recent form of use, that would be slang, its definition could be defined as “a little-valued citizen.” Why use this word on another when it has a degrading meaning? It’s even worse when a white person uses it, as many in this school do, because they have even less knowledge of the word and only use it to look cool. Out of all these though, the worst is when a black person is calling a white person the “n” word. What to say? How to respond and act? I saw a black girl call a white girl, who, seconds earlier, looked briefly at the black girl, the “n” word, multiple times until she was out of earshot (which was a long way away). I just stood there dumbfounded as if I knew I should so something but didn’t know what to do. She just laughed to herself. The victim was visibly blushing and trembling, in rage or embarrassment, who knows. This is getting to be the norm throughout the school, black on white racism. It disgusts me that people would do this to each other, especially after so much history with the subject. Even though the history of white people dominating the black race through slavery is a horrific tragedy that can’t be undone, it doesn’t give them the right to act the way they do today.
After reciting this paper in front of you, I know some of you are still unconvinced and that’s fine. It’ll take awhile before anyone realizes what kind of world we’re living in today, and how long these racist feelings will last; only time will tell.
-----------------------------------------------------
My conclusion: The media kills.