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Barack Obama’s race speech at the Constitution Center starts off with “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union”. This famous start of the Preamble to the Constitution sets the tone to be very patriotic, prideful, and serious. He later changes emotions and uses phrases like “racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe”. As he gets deeper into his ethnicity background he starts to get angry and passionate. He goes on to be outraged because “those are his people”. He feels emotional because he is apart of the stereotypes he’s describing.
Ally’s choice podcast is about Ally following the Barack Obama campaign and her experience while doing so. Ally finds a woman named Clarice that looks white but will go out of her way to prove she is negro. He daughter on the other hand says she's white. This creates aggravation in her Mother Clarice. She wants her to be proud of being negro. Ally sets the tone of curiosity as she gives history on Clarice’s home town. Even though Clarice is only 1/16th black, she still considers herself as a negro because that’s what she was told when she was growing up. The emotions change to hatred because Clarice’s daughter talks about being bullied for being black in front of everyone while the teacher didn't do anything. She was so ashamed of being negro that she changed her life before the beginning of high school started. She disowned her own sister because she was so ashamed of being “dirty”.
A lot of emotions were triggered throughout these readings. In Obamas speech, you can feel is passion and anger bleeding through his words. I think he takes a very logical approach while hitting on some emotions. He states that America was founded and built off this core “ideal of equal citizenship under the law”, promising liberty and justice, but contradicted itself by creating the sin of slavery. He gets pretty emotional, seeming to blame the white Americans actions for the behavior of African-Americans today. By putting the blame on white people – which could trigger some anger - he tells them that they can’t expect Negros to just forget about everything they did; there is still anger in their hearts and in order to really solve race issues in this country Americans must understand the roots of this anger in order to understand.
ReplyDeleteWhile in the podcast, I really just felt bad for the family. The two readings were both personal anecdotes, but the Ally’s choice article really made you realize the hardship Negros went through at that time. By crying and even showing conflict in the family, it made it you feel sad for the family. In the end I guess the goal was to show the impact of racism on Negros, and I definitely got the message with this podcast.
The speech by Obama uses many sense of emotion throughout it. Talking about his upbringings and how he saw his own grandmother use racial stereotypes enough to make him cringe. How he backed up his pastor who had angered Americans everywhere with some regards towards whites. Obama’s message wasn’t about him, his sincerity about it all was hoping towards a greater goal: true equality for all. No matter how America was brought up, Obama says that the great thing about America is its ability to change.
ReplyDeleteIn Ally’s Choice emotion is heard throughout the whole podcast. You hear their voices and tones; sounds of them close to tears at times. The mother of Ally starts out with coming out straight out the book and bringing out her birth certificate to show how she is black. Her other daughter follows suite and says that she is black as well, but with Ally it is a different story. She grew up ashamed of who she was and where she was from. She was a victim of racism, being from Jackson she was automatically known as dirty and poor, when she didn’t even want to be associated as black. She ends the interview by saying how she can’t wait to leave where she is from, she tells her mother that as soon as she is gone that so will she.
Listening to “Ally’s Choice” produced by Lu Olkowski, I felt tons of different emotions. Sadness, anger, frustration, sorrow, disgust, even a little happiness. For example, when the girls in class were picking on ally, telling her she smells; “You all smell.” they’d say. This made me mad, I wanted to say something back to those girls, for Ally! People just sit around and watch too, which honestly makes them look just as bad, especially the teacher.
ReplyDeleteIt still to this day confuses me how people can literally be so damn heartless, not even think to filter some of the things that come out of their mouth. I understand the difference between intentional insult and non but you know, some shit is just better left unsaid, some shit is just straight up dehumanizing
While reading Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech, Tran scripted by the National Constitution Center, I found that right in the beginning emotion was present. It’s weird, I can’t really describe which one though. I just felt, strangely enough, comfortable reading this, it was very modern. I felt strength in my own voice reading this, he made me feel sympathy for all that are discriminated against. He also helped me relate to all that he struggled with (some still does today), the past and present, for example the paragraph starting with, “For the African-American Community…” I think I read that paragraph about 3 times. You certainly do write your own destiny, and if you let some one else, who’s life are you really living?
In Ally's choice, Clarice was and is a head strong woman. Being 1/16th black is her holding point. Even as a black man understanding appropriation, it touched me how strong she defended the black community and her family. The post cast strongly used pathos to evoke emotion out of the viewer and made the story kind of sad. Her daughter Ally who had a very hard time ended up gone. It sad that through this situation her family broke apart, the kids extremely confused, and the daughters of Clarice not accepting. Even the younger sister wants to leave, "After you're gone, I'm gone." The story is definitely a tear jerker, and I don't know if this is right, but I felt sad for the family because "they didn't know any better."
ReplyDeleteIn Obama's Race speech, he is the calm Obama we all know, with that seductive deep voice, (Obama is my fav obviously) and cool attitude. Surprisingly, this changes throughout the speech as he talks about his past and his race journey. Obama gets angry. He doesn't feel good explaining his family, his white grandma saying, " I can no more disown him that I can disown the black community." (pg.4) Obama's speech is amazing and he definitely used ethos and pathos for this speech.
I felt a more emotional pull listening to the podcast than reading Obama's speech.
ReplyDeleteIn the podcast, we got to hear stories from Ally, her mother, and her sister. While her mother and sister embraced that they were negro, Ally was ashamed. It made me so sad that she was embarrassed of who she was and where she came from. Ally talks about how she was bullied until she started hanging out with a new group of people who knew nothing about her. She found relief in knowing she could be whoever she wanted to be with this new group of friends. She would pretend that she didn't know her sister at school and she would deny and deny her own sister. The most heartbreaking part was when her son came home after visitation with her ex husband. Ally's son would tell his grandma, "Grandma you're a nigger." At such a young age, he was being brainwashed to be hateful towards a person of color.
Obama's speech was very moving because he was all for a change for the nation's sake, not just his own. He states "the union may never be perfect" but you can tell after all the hurt and experience he has been through, he is hopeful.
Being mixed like Ally and Obama, I can deeply sympathize with them. Feeling like an outsider and trying to identify myself was really hard growing up so it was easy to relate with a lot of what they said.
Personally I loved both readings. They were both so emotional, raw and real.
ReplyDeleteObama's speech brings up an extremely good point about how America hasn't and still does not live up to the Constitution's idea of "all men created equal". I completely agree with this because there still is inequality and racism. And it's sad to say but I don't think that's ever going to go away. Some parents with these racist beliefs raise their children to have the same beliefs, and even though some of those kids end up having a mind of their own once they grow up, some kids grow up having racist views and raising their children the same way. It's a vicious, never ending cycle. In Obama's speech you can see the anger and sadness he expresses word for word. He brings up that African-Americans cannot fully get over what happened to their ancestors because it hurt them so deeply. Throughout the speech you can feel Obama's hope for this country to change its ways and for every man to truly be created equal.
Ally's Choice had me in tears. It had a much more intense effect on me than Obama's speech because you could actually hear the emotion behind the words. It was easier to put myself in their shoes because you can hear the raw emotion from their voices. Racism affected this family so deeply and it was truly one of the saddest things to think about. Like Bailey said, if the goal was to show the impact of racism on Negros, I too definitely got the message.
I felt bad for this family when she started talking about in the twin cities they were consider negros because they were the “others”, and how in the 90s the daughters were dealing with the same issues as their mother in the 80s. Especially when one of the daughters got deodorant thrown at her because “blacks were dirty”, and she stopped fighting to be “black”. I felt more sympathy for the other sister because her sister didn’t stick up for her, and lead most of the bullies. I also felt really bad for the children growing up in a racist house hold, and having to deal with the confusion of what they are instead of just being able to live life carefree. In Obama’s race speech given at the Consitution Center he uses multiple emotions to get his point across. He talks about his white grandmother using racial stereotypes so much that it made him cringe. Obamas message to America was not only about him, but the greater America society. He says, “These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love”. HE believes that America is able to change for the greater good.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Emily’s comment above and how she said she could get more emotion out of the podcast than Obama’s speech. I think this is because were actually hearing the persons voice and listening to the emotion that they speak. By us just reading the speech, we can’t really grasp the emotion of his speech completely. There was so much emotion listening to Ally describe how the two girls threw deodorant at her and called her dirty and how the teacher did nothing. If that was me, I would change just like she did because I wouldn’t be able to take that either. I also agree with Emily’s point on how emotional Obama was in wanting change for this country. It’s been years and years and people still are racist. I honestly don’t think it will ever change because people raise their children how they were raised and therefore it becomes a never ending cycle. There cannot be a true solution because of this and its sad. No one can choose to be born into a certain culture and its wrong for people to take advantage of that and bully someone. This topic has so much emotion to it and you could really tell both readings were passionate about it.
ReplyDeleteThere are many different emotions in Obama’s speech and the podcast of “Ally’s Choice”. At first, Obama is patriotic and tells us about the making of the constitution. As I was reading the speech, I could hear Obama’s voice in my head and the different emotions I thought he would be using. When talking about the inequality and racism that still exists in our country, I could hear him being passionate and angry because of these horrible things.
ReplyDeleteIn “Ally’s Choice” there were many emotions. Ally’s mom was very defensive when explaining that she was black, despite the color of her skin. I felt a little angry at Ally because she declared that she was no longer black anymore, that she was now white. This made me angry because black people who actually have dark skin, they can’t declare that they’re white when they’re being mistreated by racists. Black people don’t have that choice. I also felt bad for Ally and her sister because they would get bullied because of where they came from and because they were “dirty”. Sadness was a constant emotion throughout the podcast. I also felt bad for the mom because her grandchild was saying racist things because of what the father was teaching him.
Obama explains in his speech his heritage and how despite how he is an untraditional presidential candidate, no matter where he may come from we all are the same. He words this beautifully by saying, “It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one” (Obama). Through his personal anecdotes and use of language emotions of sadness, pride, and happiness. Obama speaks of the United States history of slavery which provokes an emotion of sadness and shame. He speaks of the negative things spoke about Reverend Wright. Instead of agreeing, he defends his friend which speaks of the character of Obama. He provokes emotion through this sentence, “These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love” (Obama). In Ally’s choice it is much easier to feel the emotion of her words because we are hearing her actual voice (and even cry) opposed to reading a text. She strongly defends negros which provokes an emotion of sadness because you feel bad for her hardship.
ReplyDeletepodcast was a different way to approach emotions and Obama's speech has different way to trigger someones emotions. In Obama's speech its a president who is giving speech about how we all are same, and describes the stereo types that he was part of it. he can trigger someones emotion by using the stereo types like that but what trigger my emotions was that girl being bullied so much that she changed herself. she didn't wanna be "dirty", that type of stuff makes me mad that how can you bully someone first of all and than bully them enough where they hate part of themselves.
ReplyDeleteObama's speach is another great example of his ability to use his emotions and control of emotions to get the greatest of his ideas across. His way of calmly yet with passion address his audience both in person and his viewers is a testament to not only his amazing speech writers but also his abilty as an aurator. Obama's speech builds throughout its course to where the audience is completely captivated by it.
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