In my Humanities class, Rhetoric, we recently finished our third and final unit “Unity”. In this unit we furthered our knowledge on rhetoric the impact it can have. We studied different situations where rhetoric has been used to inspire, unite, and bring about change. We then focused on the certain devices used to create this unity. Some being Alliteration, Assonance, Hyperbole, Metaphor, Antithesis, and more. We studied certain passages to really grasp how these devices get used, For example Common Sense by Thomas Paine was a pamphlet that continuously used rhetoric to persuade independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. With this we were simultaneously seeing the strong connection politics have with rhetoric. This all led to the eyes of our creative selves to create an art piece that speaks on our mayoral candidate to shine light on what they represent as a unit. I decided to create a abstract collage that is based on the school system to show forth what my candidate is about. I wanted to challenge the idea of abstract as it is seen simplistic and open for interpretation with this I created a intentional theme that simplistically holds analogies to this one fight. As our unit ends I hope you have gained knowledge to go out and VOTE!
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GA, "Gated Community", 2018
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This piece challenges what a gated community is. The word gated is defined as confinement, elaborating on that it’s not very inviting. Community defined as a group, it can be taken as inclusive to a lot of people, very inviting. Yet, once put together it becomes contradictory, gated community draws the idea of the people seeing education as this untouched community that doesn't play within the rest of the corrupt system when in reality we built a "gated" playground to invite pipelines of prison industrial complex, rigged funds, censorship, military practices, and bordered white walls. This serves as a recording of what has been said by kids, teens, and adults it unites the stories into a collective theme that breaks the barriers that have been made to separate the thought of education being affiliated with Greed of money, power, Luxury or any other market desires. Engravings and recordings have been used rhetorically throughout the years to convince a certain way of living, thinking and being. I was influenced by that concept to visualize my drawing with recording incidents. Theodore de Bry was a famous engraver who depicted the early European expeditions to the Americas. Theodore influenced the European perception of the New World, Africa, and Asia by showing negative illustrations of how the Indians live. The tradition of recording history to your advantage has been successful and will continue to be. My piece carries the tradition of serving a plate filled with the nutrition you need(education) and letting you see it be poisoned(systems). I grounded this piece with lightly sketched lines to show how classrooms create these invisible borders of conformity that subconsciously restricts students to these fabricated dynamics. Within the lines that represent the frame of the school, I started adding concepts that make up the student body and what it does to us. The "RM 102" is a small door that rooted the rest of the chain. "RM 102" represents how schools are designed and structured around the same set up of prisons and manufacture. Organizing classrooms by numbers send a message to the students that the space they occupy to learn isn't for them. Classrooms aren't built to feel connected its just a border that separates another classroom with a different number. This is what lead me to the school to prison pipeline, gravitating with the set up of a classroom I explored what makes up these tendencies reoccurring with the students. Factors such as school disturbance laws, zero tolerance policies, and practices, and an increase in police in schools these were all put in for SAFETY! safety for who? safety from who? We've created a system where we don't see children skills and growth, we have created an inventory of social, economic, racial demographics. We've created a resume for these children to prepare them for their set up pipeline. This chained analogy is a rhetorical device that I used to demonstrate the issue around the structure of cps and its harm it brings. Another rhetorical technique is the strong balance of pathos and logos. Facts can cause an emotional connection when the truth that's being given is destroying generations to come. This piece isn't an exaggeration. This is the system finally bleeding into the walls of the schools and the student lives, the chain isn't invisible anymore. You need to speak up, stop censoring your children in what they are being enrolled in don't let the schools built a resume and choose the path for your kid.
