In this last unit Rhetoric "Unite", we talked about how art can be the use of Rhetoric. In this action project, we looked closely at rhetorical art that politicians use to present themselves or get a message across. We learned about many different rhetorical devices, appeals, and that people use to get messages across to an audience. In class, briefly talked about the art inside of rhetoric by looking at past students' action projects so we could prioritize our own artworks followed by an artist statement. My artist statement will go further in-depth about the use of rhetoric inside of my artwork.
The purpose of this action project is to use a medium of art to bring people together while also sending a message through the rhetorical meaning of your artwork. For one of our field experiences, we went to Marquette Park and looked at an art piece and memorial called the "Living Memorial". It's based on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work he did to immobilize racial discrimination throughout Chicago in the '60s. I chose to do something that is impossibly unavoidable due to my existence, being black in the United States of America in our current year 2020. I used a fading "Black Lives Matter" sign from a protest for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the remaining existence of systemic oppression and modern-day lynching in America. Here's the link to a quote from former US President Donald Trump I used in my piece.
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Rhetorical Art Piece: Being Black in America. N.L. (2020)
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| Rhetorical Art Piece: Being Black in America. N.L. (2020) |
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| Rhetorical Art Piece: Being Black in America N.L. (2020) |
Artist Statement:
I’m a young black male in a country that was built off the backs of my people. A country that continues to not acknowledge the murders, genocides, and over-exploitation of African Americans. The topic of my artwork is a blink of the world I experience in the United States of America. The message behind this piece is that blackness shouldn’t be feared and tolerated. Black and brown-skinned people in this country should be accepted just as those of “fair skin” is. My skin color and whether or not people of color lives matter shouldn’t be a controversial topic at all! My call for justice shouldn’t become another hashtag or trend on social media as a flex of being an ally to the black community. This topic is detrimental to my existence in this country and should evoke controversial discussions and arguments. I chose to reuse a sign from a protest I attended back in June because there’s sentimental value in the poster being repurposed as artwork. I used mostly black sharpie markers and two paint markers to add some detail. I felt that drawing on the sign I kept from an actual protest got my message across way better than customizing the statement behind the movement, “Black Lives Matter” in my sketchbook. I utilized the rhetorical appeals and devices within my work to boldly present my position on the fact that the lives of black people do matter and that facts need to be interpreted within the laws, acts, and amendments in this country. I openly used the rhetorical appeal of pathos in my art by crossing out the word “all” and replacing it with “black” to restate my position and the fact. Words such as “murders”, “violent”, “aggressive”, “suspects”, and “targets” are often misconceptions and stereotypes of black people and were used to represent the rhetoric devices of hyperbole and metaphor. I used parallelism by writing a positive and negative word correlated by the letter of the two words such as “statistics” and “survivors” inside of the letter S itself. Lastly, there was the device of anaphora within the use of quoting Donald Trump’s proposal on why black Americans should’ve voted for him during his campaign. If this sign were ever to be in a history museum, my sign art should be housed in the same section of the countless painted wooden boards that were used for the protection of storefronts across Chicago. “The American Negro finds himself living in a triple ghetto: a ghetto of race, a ghetto of poverty, and a ghetto to deal with this problem, the problem of dealing with these two Americas. We are seeking to make America one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Civil Rights Movement was not that long ago, and here we are in the year 2020 “fighting” the same issues of this country and its people. Living with that fact in my mind as a teenager disgusts me on a level unimaginable. African Americans, blacks and “negroes”, whatever you call us, we still haven’t been given general decency or respect on a humane level. From gestures such as a greeting while walking by. I can’t walk down a busy street in Chicago’s Loop (downtown) without feeling the racial tension between the people I walk past that happen to be predominantly white. Black people in America are feared, often called intimidating, and treated inhumanely, disrespectfully, and even killed to subdue the emotions non-blacks feel. Black Lives Matter is an organization and a statement. Many Americans argue that they support the statement but not the organization because the organization is involved with controversies and politics overall. I interpret that support similar to someone stating, “I support that veterans need to be treated better after serving their country. But I can’t support an organization involved with seeking resources for veterans because of the controversies within politics.” It just doesn’t add up to not support something that stands for the overall well being of a people group just because of different views the organization has on real-world issues. I guarantee if the organization did not represent people of color in this country, the arguments around making the USA safer for black and brown people being controversial would cease to exist due to white silence and privilege. To be clear, you are not an ally if you only say BLM for short instead of what it stands for, if you use the statement and name of the group to prove your not racist or have prejudice, and if you only support the phrase and not the organization.
