Script:
Today I will be reviewing and analyzing an article written by Alaa Elassar entitled “Black Women are often overlooked by social justice movements, a new study finds” for CNN journalism. I will be performing a rhetorical analysis on the article and focus on what the author says, how she says it, and what she uses to support her claim. Besides just analyzing the article I will be looking for the writing appeals and how the author connects those apples to the intended audience and any hidden biases the author has. In this article Alaa explores the world of social justice and how black women don’t get their own line of justice or activism. Along with taking surveys of other people’s views on women and the correlation between the disregard of black women in these movements. Black women are thrown into the mix with black men and aren’t looked at as their own individual line of justice. This is an important topic and to some a personal subject due to the current state our society is in. I feel like this article is a great conversation starter and for some it will broaden horizons and will give some insight into the black community and our struggles from within. I believe this will spark some activism and discussions so I am open to any and all opinions and comments. Thank you and enjoy.
Script :
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to MaKenzie’s Mind. I am your host MaKenzie Broner and in today's episode we are going to be analyzing an article written by Alaa Elassar, entitled “Black Women Are Often overlooked by social justice movements, a new study finds”. In the article Alaa brings attention to not only social injustice, but social injustice towards black women specifically and how they aren’t recognized in the same manner as black men when action is taken. The article touches on topics such as sexism and racism and how these aspects of our society impact black women and their contributions for justice and reform. I want to analyze the author’s purpose for writing, the author’s appeals to the intended audience, and any author’s biases that may be shown. I feel as though it is a beautifully written article and it is definitely needed in this time of change so let’s dive right in.
Given the topic, this article was written to enlighten readers of the mistreatment and the generalization that black women are put under in social movements. This is a topic that is openly discussed within the black community but not enough outside of the community. This is an informational article with details and description about the lack of justice for black women and expressing this to the general public. I believe the intended audience for this piece is everyone including the black community because in the article Alaa explains problems within the community that can be illuminated and it explains how people view black women. For example in the article it stated and I quote, “The study also revealed that prototypes of groups made up of various race and gender intersections continuously erase and exclude black women.” This is the result of the study constructed and it indicates that people’s ideal and rhetorical ideas of a woman are not a black woman but different women .
In the article Elassar used appeals such as using quotes from activists and scientific data to help support her claim in more ways than one. The author uses the appeals of logos by using the scientific data to aid her claim logically , and ethos by quoting a credible source to display to her audience that this is a real problem by speaking to the people it affects. I feel as though the author was able to effectively communicate her views with the audience because she translated how black women are put into the movements and how they aren’t raised to the same degree as black men. . For example, the article also states and I quote, “ Bass noted that Breonna Taylor, an unarmed Black woman killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky, in March didn’t garner nearly as much attention.” Indicating that Breonna’s death didn’t have the same degree of limelight as others have gotten.
The article was a very well-written, objective piece. Elassar didn’t use any persuasion techniques or any appeals that would make her audience feel attacked or compelled to do something. In the article Ellassar wrote “The exclusion of black women puts them at risk for greater harm.” Quotes like this show that Alaa wrote from an information and neutral viewpoint, she didn’t apply force or evoked fear , she simply wrote to saturate the people that read it.
In the end I personally enjoyed reading and revising the article. Elassar really captured the importance of black women in movements and their endowment to the black community. The author constructed a piece of writing that hit home for me and many others and conveyed it in a way that wasn’t offensive but perceptive. I loved her writing and the quotes she chose to use, for me that showed that she wasn’t writing just from her ground knowledge that she went and did research and had conversations with people to really detain the information and spread it without complications. Like I always say this is another article tackled and we have a lot more to find. Thank you for tuning into another episode of MaKenzie’s Mind.
References:
The music - "1 Hour of NEO SOUL Instrumental Music"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VNm3rGXPXs&t=154s
The Writing - "Black Women are often ignored by social justice movements, a new study finds" by Alaa Elassar , CNN, July 18, 2020.