Hello again readers. This is my fourth blog post. In today’s blog post, I’d like to talk about the amazing rhetoric Dr. Tatum uses in her book Why are all the Balck Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? For this reading my group decided to read pages two hundred twenty to page two hundred ninety-nine. In this chunk of pages, Dr. Tatum talks about racism with other ethnicities and races. She talks about racism in Latinx, Native, and Asian communities and how it differs from each ethnicity.
What stood out to me is how in the previous chapters, she regularly uses a lot of personal anecdotes about her experiences with race, and how the students in her classes would respond to certain studies and tests. Though in this section of pages, she rarely uses any story that starts with “I.” I personally find this to strengthen her argument, as she does not try to speak for a community that she isn’t a part of. While she has shared experiences with racist comments, and prejudice based off of the color of her skin or her culture, she doesn’t have the exact same experiences.
Instead of using personal experiences, she cites a lot of studies that were done on the different ethnicities and their experiences with racism. One of my favorite quotes she uses in this section is when she is talking about the racism that Latinx students go through while in middle school and high school.
I don’t feel inferior any more. I used to in high school, I did. People don’t want you to speak Spanish and before I was one of those that’s very guilty of not speaking it because I didn’t want to draw attention to me, but now you can’t tell me not to speak Spanish because for me that’s the biggest form of oppression. My kids are going to speak Spanish and they’re going to speak it loud (pg 247).
I say that this is my favorite quote in the section because of what it represents. It represents a student, despite being the target of racism, who ended up thriving because of their difference and their ability to speak Spanish.
The quotes Dr. Tatum chooses to write out, rather than quickly summarize, making a huge difference when it comes to the impact her writing has on me, and I’m sure her other readings. Not only do her studies help exemplify her point, her word choice and rhetoric throughout the book make it easy to read, while you also are gaining a lot of information from it. She uses everyday vocabulary that is easily recognizable and understandable for many different people. I highly recommend Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? As it discusses very serious and complex topics in a matter that is easy to understand.
Works cited:
Prince, Christopher. “The VICE Guide To All The Races.” VICE, 30 Nov. 2002, 7:00,
www.vice.com/en/article/dp3mbw/the-vice-guide-v9n2.
Good selection of a quote to support your ideas, and I agree that it would be very difficult for her to speak for the experience of others. Do you think that she provides enough evidence in this section, even though it's not her own experience?
ReplyDeleteHello,
DeleteI do think she provides enough evidence in the section. I certainly don't think it is about the quantity of evidence, I think that it is about the quality of it, and how well it fits into what she is writing. Dr. Tatum has proven time and time again that she can get her message across very well with her writing and her analysis of others' sources. In certain sections she is able to use her experiences as well as others to support her message, and in this section she just had to use her writing skills as well as others' sources. Either way, her writing is excellent.
Emily