Hey readers, and welcome back to my blog! Unfortunately, this is my last post :(. I'd like to take a second and say thank you to everyone who has even glanced at my blog. It's been an interesting assignment for me, mostly because I kept forgetting to post until the last day possible. It was kind of like an "out of sight, out of mind" sort of thing, until I'd see my copy of WAATBKSTITC? sitting on my desk and a siren would go off in my head. (I'd have already read the assigned section, don't worry. I just wouldn't have had posted about it yet).
Anyway, on with the post! First, as I've done before, I'd like to address a point I briefly talked about in "Part IV", but never expanded enough. I mentioned Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD.'s use of logos in the fourth section of the book, but I never really talked about why it was an effective stylistic and rhetorical choice. That entire section of the book was logos logos logos, all facts and statistics and numbers. It was a little hard to read, with all of the superscripts (citation references) and percentages and what not. Admittedly, though, it was a really nice break from just straight opinion. I think that it was effective because it was such a drastic change from the entire rest of the novel, and it made the reader (well, at least me) think, Oh sweet, something to read that isn't Tatum pushing her opinions on me. It was also nice because instead of her just stating something, like "More Native people live in poverty than any other racial group (258)" , she backed it up with solid numbers: "According to 2015 census data, the median income of single-race American Indian and Alaska Natives households was $38,530; the national median was $55,775. (258)" This was especially effective because instead of just reading a statement, you also read actual facts associated with the statement [kind of like putting a face to a name-putting a number to a claim (hey, that rhymes!)].
As for the final section/my final thoughts on the book, I feel like her concluding section was well-worth reading the entire book. In the epilogue, titled "Signs of Hope, Sites of Progress", she gives a ton of evidence as to how the issue of racism is starting to be countered with non-racist acts.
For example, she talks about an incident that occurred at Texas A&M University where Black teens were verbally harassed by college kids while they took a tour of the campus. The president of the student body, Joseph Benigno, released a video on YouTube later that discussed the dangers of silence on the subject of racial attacks. (Here's the video.) Tatum stated that his "example of leadership was for me a sign of hope. (344)" I have to agree with Tatum on this one-for a college student to be so moved and so upset by an incident like this, that he rose to the occasion and released this video, just shows the potential the coming generations have to create change. As youngins these days, we are so collectively aware of the dangers of racism, and we are beginning to more openly discuss these subjects in school, at home, and with our peers, that we have real potential to make the world a better, safer place.
Another example of humanity's changing mindset is the mention of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner way back in June of 1964. These boys were civil rights workers, one a southern Black man and two northern White men. After almost forty years, the Klan leader who ordered the attacks (and bragged about it), was finally brought to justice. This reminds me of another cold case from 1964 where two nineteen-year-old Black boys, Henry Dee and Charles Moore, were brutally murdered by some Klansmen (my mom and I listen to a lot of cold case podcasts, if you're wondering why I so readily thought of that). The boys were beaten and whipped until they were almost dead, and then tied to a car motor and thrown into the Mississippi River to drown. After the deaths of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, the police were searching for bodies and found one of the other boys' bodies in the river. They disregarded the body after realizing it was a Black boy, and soon forgot all about it in the years to come. In the early 2000's, a belt buckle was found in the river along with other...remnants. The only reason they were able to identify the body was because the boy with the belt's brother had given that belt to him before he died. The brother, Thomas Moore, and the man investigating the Chaney/Goodman/Schwerner murders, David Ridgen, went to Mississippi and reopened the cold case. A suspected Klansman who had admitted to being there when Moore and Dee were tortured and killed, James Ford Seale, was thought to be dead until very recently. In 2007, he was sentenced to three life sentences for the conspiracy to kidnap and the kidnapping of two people, and kidnapping where the victims died. This is just another example of how moved a White person was by a terrible thing that happened to a Black person, and he spent all of his time trying to solve a case that had gone cold forty years prior. Things like this are the reason I have hope for the death of racism in America, and eventually, the World.
I commend Tatum for making me think about race in her book. I honestly thought at the beginning of this assignment that I'd just read the book and make up some response to a reading I didn't really understand or necessarily care to read. However, it ended up being quite the contrary. Not only did I understand most of what Tatum was talking about, but I also began to understand myself in terms of my own race, my own privilege, my town, my peers, my family, and how I can help to speak up and change things.
Nice work, Tatum.
Anyway, on with the post! First, as I've done before, I'd like to address a point I briefly talked about in "Part IV", but never expanded enough. I mentioned Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD.'s use of logos in the fourth section of the book, but I never really talked about why it was an effective stylistic and rhetorical choice. That entire section of the book was logos logos logos, all facts and statistics and numbers. It was a little hard to read, with all of the superscripts (citation references) and percentages and what not. Admittedly, though, it was a really nice break from just straight opinion. I think that it was effective because it was such a drastic change from the entire rest of the novel, and it made the reader (well, at least me) think, Oh sweet, something to read that isn't Tatum pushing her opinions on me. It was also nice because instead of her just stating something, like "More Native people live in poverty than any other racial group (258)" , she backed it up with solid numbers: "According to 2015 census data, the median income of single-race American Indian and Alaska Natives households was $38,530; the national median was $55,775. (258)" This was especially effective because instead of just reading a statement, you also read actual facts associated with the statement [kind of like putting a face to a name-putting a number to a claim (hey, that rhymes!)].
As for the final section/my final thoughts on the book, I feel like her concluding section was well-worth reading the entire book. In the epilogue, titled "Signs of Hope, Sites of Progress", she gives a ton of evidence as to how the issue of racism is starting to be countered with non-racist acts.
For example, she talks about an incident that occurred at Texas A&M University where Black teens were verbally harassed by college kids while they took a tour of the campus. The president of the student body, Joseph Benigno, released a video on YouTube later that discussed the dangers of silence on the subject of racial attacks. (Here's the video.) Tatum stated that his "example of leadership was for me a sign of hope. (344)" I have to agree with Tatum on this one-for a college student to be so moved and so upset by an incident like this, that he rose to the occasion and released this video, just shows the potential the coming generations have to create change. As youngins these days, we are so collectively aware of the dangers of racism, and we are beginning to more openly discuss these subjects in school, at home, and with our peers, that we have real potential to make the world a better, safer place.
Another example of humanity's changing mindset is the mention of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner way back in June of 1964. These boys were civil rights workers, one a southern Black man and two northern White men. After almost forty years, the Klan leader who ordered the attacks (and bragged about it), was finally brought to justice. This reminds me of another cold case from 1964 where two nineteen-year-old Black boys, Henry Dee and Charles Moore, were brutally murdered by some Klansmen (my mom and I listen to a lot of cold case podcasts, if you're wondering why I so readily thought of that). The boys were beaten and whipped until they were almost dead, and then tied to a car motor and thrown into the Mississippi River to drown. After the deaths of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, the police were searching for bodies and found one of the other boys' bodies in the river. They disregarded the body after realizing it was a Black boy, and soon forgot all about it in the years to come. In the early 2000's, a belt buckle was found in the river along with other...remnants. The only reason they were able to identify the body was because the boy with the belt's brother had given that belt to him before he died. The brother, Thomas Moore, and the man investigating the Chaney/Goodman/Schwerner murders, David Ridgen, went to Mississippi and reopened the cold case. A suspected Klansman who had admitted to being there when Moore and Dee were tortured and killed, James Ford Seale, was thought to be dead until very recently. In 2007, he was sentenced to three life sentences for the conspiracy to kidnap and the kidnapping of two people, and kidnapping where the victims died. This is just another example of how moved a White person was by a terrible thing that happened to a Black person, and he spent all of his time trying to solve a case that had gone cold forty years prior. Things like this are the reason I have hope for the death of racism in America, and eventually, the World.
I commend Tatum for making me think about race in her book. I honestly thought at the beginning of this assignment that I'd just read the book and make up some response to a reading I didn't really understand or necessarily care to read. However, it ended up being quite the contrary. Not only did I understand most of what Tatum was talking about, but I also began to understand myself in terms of my own race, my own privilege, my town, my peers, my family, and how I can help to speak up and change things.
Nice work, Tatum.
Hi Porter,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I liked your evaluation of how Tatum went from simply stating her opinions to her actually using facts, I can definitely see how this would be a nice change of pace. Would you recommend this book to a friend? It was one of my top choices when we chose which books to blog about, and I was wondering how you feel about it.
Katie
Hey Katie,
DeleteThank you! In all honesty, I would not recommend this book to a friend. While I am appreciative of the racial awakening and realizations this book has given me, I do not think it was worth the read. I think I would have figured those things out for myself eventually, and it was no "Harry Potter" excitement-wise.
Hi Porter,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your last post. Although it was certainly gruesome, your description of the Chaney/Goodman/Schwerner cold case was very powerful. I'm a bit appalled that law enforcement disregarded finding a body because the color of the body wasn't white, but I also agree with you that in more recent years the tendencies that people have can be very telling of the approaching end to racism and discrimination in this country. Nicely done!
Hey Porter,
ReplyDeleteExcellent final post! Your explanation and retelling of the cold case was very effective for connecting it to Tatum's main overall argument. As you mentioned, the use of logos made her evidence more effective. What was your opinion on her conclusion? Do you think that it reflected her argument well?
As always, Porter, your voice comes off the screen clearly, which is a real strength of your writing. Your inclusion of a different cold case, and your use of that to develop an answer to your main question, was a strength of this post.
ReplyDelete