Hello readers, and welcome back to PLT's AP Lang Blog! As you know, here I discuss various subjects relating to Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD.'s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
In this post, I will be talking about Tatum's stylistic choices and how they get her argument, or what I think is her purpose in writing this book, across to the reader.
I've already mentioned some of the arguments Tatum makes and what my thoughts are about them, but I haven't really addressed what I think the purpose of the book is. Well...I'm not sure, to be honest. I mean, I've got some ideas, but I don't know exactly. She writes about such a huge array of things in her book, so I don't think I can pin down a real purpose other than one really generalized one: to educate the masses about what race and racism are. This serves many different smaller purposes, depending on who the reader is. For example, for a White person like myself, it gives a broader perspective to look at and helps to better understand the struggles that people of other races face. For others, I think it would be helpful to read in order to understand yourself, especially when she talks about coming to terms with your race and what it means to be your race. I think for anybody (even a White person) who may be struggling with their racial identity, this book's purpose is to help them learn how to understand it.
Now on to the fun part: how Tatum gets her point across.
I really liked how Part IV of WAATBKSTITC (creative, huh?) is structured, and the purpose of it. I can easily state the purpose of this section, which is to acknowledge the fact that there are more races than just Black and White. It's to give recognition to the other racial groups that have struggled with oppression and unfair treatment, because everybody focuses on Blacks and Whites, but there are many other sides to the stories of racism.
Tatum begins this section with a handful of quotes that introduce her main idea for Part IV (235):
The section starts with Chapter Eight, which is called, "Critical Issues in Latinx, Native, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern//North African Identity Development". As you can guess, she spends the section talking about issues these specific groups have had historically, and issues they continue to have today. What I like, though, is her clear labeling of each subsection. Previously in the book, though there were subsection titles, I often found it hard to follow what Tatum was saying because she jumped from group to group or idea to idea without a clear transition. In this section, she clearly tells you which group she'll talk about, and she goes in order of the chapter's title. For example, the first group's section is called, "What Do We Mean When We Say 'Latinx'? (237)" She then goes into the group's history in the United States, including lots and lots of statistics and numbers (which got a little hard to focus on after a while), and how they're doing here today. She does this for each group, and I like how structured it is. It's almost like she had a little checklist like, "Immigration stats, birthrates, literacy rates, annual income rates, etc." and she just went through and checked each one off for each group. As someone with OCD PD (Google it-Tatum knows what it is), it's very nice to read a section as rigidly structured as this one. Even the subsections are titled the same: the one after Latinx is called, "What Do We Mean When We Say 'Native'? (256)", which I appreciate.
The last thing I'd like to mention is Tatum's extensive use of logos in this section. She definitely used a lot of facts and statistics before, but that's almost all this section is. I thought it helped put some real meaning behind her ideas, and gave her even more credibility as the author-whoever puts that much effort into researching a book (she's got hundreds of citations) must be worth listening to, and very well might have a point worth considering.
Well, that's it for this post, I have to go start my reading for my fifth and final post-so stay tuned for Part V!
Thanks for reading!
In this post, I will be talking about Tatum's stylistic choices and how they get her argument, or what I think is her purpose in writing this book, across to the reader.
I've already mentioned some of the arguments Tatum makes and what my thoughts are about them, but I haven't really addressed what I think the purpose of the book is. Well...I'm not sure, to be honest. I mean, I've got some ideas, but I don't know exactly. She writes about such a huge array of things in her book, so I don't think I can pin down a real purpose other than one really generalized one: to educate the masses about what race and racism are. This serves many different smaller purposes, depending on who the reader is. For example, for a White person like myself, it gives a broader perspective to look at and helps to better understand the struggles that people of other races face. For others, I think it would be helpful to read in order to understand yourself, especially when she talks about coming to terms with your race and what it means to be your race. I think for anybody (even a White person) who may be struggling with their racial identity, this book's purpose is to help them learn how to understand it.
Now on to the fun part: how Tatum gets her point across.
I really liked how Part IV of WAATBKSTITC (creative, huh?) is structured, and the purpose of it. I can easily state the purpose of this section, which is to acknowledge the fact that there are more races than just Black and White. It's to give recognition to the other racial groups that have struggled with oppression and unfair treatment, because everybody focuses on Blacks and Whites, but there are many other sides to the stories of racism.
Tatum begins this section with a handful of quotes that introduce her main idea for Part IV (235):
There's more than just Black and White, you know.
Being an Asian person, a person of color growing up in this society, I was taught to hate myself. I did hate myself, and I'm trying to deal with it. -Khanh, an Asian American college studentThese quotes, along with a few more, give you a clue as to what Tatum's going to talk about. They also give Tatum credibility, as these are all (minus the first one, I don't know where she got that) from students she's taught, and students of all different ethnic backgrounds which helps show her point that there are more than two races to talk about.
The section starts with Chapter Eight, which is called, "Critical Issues in Latinx, Native, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern//North African Identity Development". As you can guess, she spends the section talking about issues these specific groups have had historically, and issues they continue to have today. What I like, though, is her clear labeling of each subsection. Previously in the book, though there were subsection titles, I often found it hard to follow what Tatum was saying because she jumped from group to group or idea to idea without a clear transition. In this section, she clearly tells you which group she'll talk about, and she goes in order of the chapter's title. For example, the first group's section is called, "What Do We Mean When We Say 'Latinx'? (237)" She then goes into the group's history in the United States, including lots and lots of statistics and numbers (which got a little hard to focus on after a while), and how they're doing here today. She does this for each group, and I like how structured it is. It's almost like she had a little checklist like, "Immigration stats, birthrates, literacy rates, annual income rates, etc." and she just went through and checked each one off for each group. As someone with OCD PD (Google it-Tatum knows what it is), it's very nice to read a section as rigidly structured as this one. Even the subsections are titled the same: the one after Latinx is called, "What Do We Mean When We Say 'Native'? (256)", which I appreciate.
The last thing I'd like to mention is Tatum's extensive use of logos in this section. She definitely used a lot of facts and statistics before, but that's almost all this section is. I thought it helped put some real meaning behind her ideas, and gave her even more credibility as the author-whoever puts that much effort into researching a book (she's got hundreds of citations) must be worth listening to, and very well might have a point worth considering.
Well, that's it for this post, I have to go start my reading for my fifth and final post-so stay tuned for Part V!
Thanks for reading!
Hi Porter,
ReplyDeleteI love how there is such a distinct voice in your writing that makes your blog stand out. You mentioned that the author appealed to logos for most of this passage about races other than black and white. Do you think that the passage would have benefited from more of the author's own insight, or is it better that she let the facts speak for themselves?
Brianna,
DeleteThank you! I honestly prefer the facts, as I have had a hard time reading such an opinionated book...however, I think that she needs to find more of a balance between opinion and fact because it's been either all one or all the other so far.
Hey Porter!
ReplyDeleteI too have had a hard time pinpointing the argument of the book. I understand that it is supposed to educate mainly white people on race relations within the country but seems to lack a concrete argument. I defiantly prefer the style in which this chapter laid out its points, everything was in a logical order, and my opinion had a good mixture of both logos and pathos. But I don't think Dr.Tatum didn't do a good job connecting this part to other three earlier ones it just seemed a little forced within the context of the book. You did an excellent job per usual and am looking forward to seeing how this book ends!
You discuss the organization structure of the text, but you haven't fully analyzed or supported the ideas about the use of logos.
ReplyDelete