Now, answer this reflection question: Applying the work of Swales and Mirabelli, how do you think the discourse communities of law and science shaped the multi-literacies, thinking, and imaginations of audiences watching Birth of a Nation?

When it comes to discourse communities and the law of science i believe that it played a major role in the way the film was viewed from each audience. i try to put myself back in those times and think these people grew up in a time where they felt that this was a normal way of living and this what there grandmother and gran fathers have taught them and how could they be wrong ? right ? so in a world were you grew up viewing African Americas as such discuss and degrade it would seem pretty normal to talk down or feel this way because this is the way they believe and talk at school, church and at home with their loved ones. Now coming from African American prospective watching this film would make you feel so belittled and disrespected. because in your home the black man is a provider and a father and husband. and you know that you all are not what they portray but there is nothing you can do about it. and when you sit around and watch the world celebrate a film that degrades a whole race it goes to show the science behind how we live in our discourse communities and places like radio stations politicians and cinemas helped promote it.

In that short piece of the film i feel they are trying to show us that there families home had been destroyed due to the war going on around them. there whole town was being destroyed and they have been hiding out afraid trying to find safety.

In the first scene the mixed or black women was sad and depressed being a caretaker for her master. she even dressed more ran down in the beginning scenes. she thought that if she slept with him that it would get her and other African Americans the help they needed. She slept with the man and was treated better then some others and dressed nicer but was still owned and controlled.

“Birth of a nation”

• this article is about a 1915 silent film
• the film is a landmark of film history
• it part fiction and part history
• the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by john Wilkes
• this article was about the relationship of two families in the civil war in the reconstruction years
• the film was controversial because displayed white men and women as nice southern people while it portrayed African Americans as not being very smart or unintelligent. and even making the men seem sexually aggressive towards white women.
• African Americans all over protested the film but they were unsuccessful and whites still ran to see the film and it became nominated for many historic awards.
• this film had African Americans played as by white people with their face painted black “blackface”

“The birth of a Nation”

evil forces that are the sources of conflicts are black Americans, black Americans who are of mixed percentage.

          Reading the article “Strivings of the Negro People” written by W.E.B Du Bois who was an established educated African American at the time. He wrote important works of history and essays. And was also a political leader. In this article he spoke about the progress of colored people over the periods of time. Throughout history blacks or African Americans were denied opportunities that were given to those that were white. This could be the basic of opportunities that led to a lifetime of hardship and generational cycles. He uses examples and experiences from his very own childhood and to show how cruel other races could be as kids and how it was taught from an early age that white was superior. He also believed that African Americans were fortunate to be African American because he felt that mean we had “double consciousness” and could understand both perspectives. Due to us being US citizens and the other half of us being from our African descent would let them see the strengths and weaknesses of being of the American society from both ends.

          Du Bois explains how hard it is to try to grow as man when you’re of African American descent without choosing one over the other. There are no schools that would barely accept blacks and if you got through school there were no jobs that would hire you. This left African Americans getting low paying poor jobs which kept them in poverty. They didn’t have anything to pass down to their family or kids which lead to generations of poverty. Du Bois believes that a race that was held back for so long shouldn’t be compared to the world yet moving at our own pace and given specific opportunities that are denied every day. At that time the south was ran by white supremacy and was segregated. So as a black man you couldn’t even provide for your family correctly.

           I believe his target audience was the white community or discourse communities such as schools, lawyers, senators, and the government that play a part in blocking opportunities for the African American race. The issue in his article is that blacks were and are constantly denied the same opportunities to succeed in America causing a lifetime of generational poverty and overall growth of a race. He provided claims by giving examples of job and educational opportunities denied from blacks. I believe his goal in this article was to convince the white man of the unjust behavior going on in America and how it effects these races and why it needs to change.

Notes

warrants – unspoken values or beliefs a writer thinks or shares with his reader .

• these warrants are steeped out of the discourse of their community

specific discourse community, argument style (evidence,reason,format,genre) comes from the discourse community. knowledge is made through discourse and creates multi litericies for individual members to use

Rhetorical Appeals

Gap – the work it takes to get basic dignity

issue – lack of opportunity for African Americans, white supremacy

Claim – African Americans should be able to benefit from the same opportunities that whites benefit from. he believes that some are just as smart as whites but are not given the same opportunities.

Reason – He believes that since g

Evidence –

readers – white Americans, wealthy African Americans

The covenant is pretty self explanatory ad i dont feel that there is anything i would change about it.

claim – he believed that two bills should be passed in order to start change. these were the Blair and Force bills

reasons – these bills would help the over all education fund federal education to the states to combat illiteracy.

“strivings of the negro people”

• W.E.B DuBois was a African American intellectual of the twentieth century.
• he wrote important works of history such as sociology, prose fiction and essays.
• he contributed to building and founding the NAACP.
• his teaching began at Wilberforce university.
• he wasn’t able to advance in his career as he should have due to his skin color.
• this passage was written about a group of people denied possibilities for advancement in american society.
• he called these actions “double consciousness”
• he believed that this was in a world where american is to be white. a world where black citizens were not considered Americans but “African Americans” he believed this doubleness gave them the ability to have “two unreconciled strivings”generated by their american citizenship and their African descent.
• he believed that people of color were looked at as being a problem.
• he felt we were gifted with a special sight to see things in a different perspective then just one.
• he speaks on how a black mans power has been wasted due to their lack of being in the communities and families with how society is set up.
• he acknowledges how slavery was the root to all of these problems for generations to come.

• discourse communities influence warrants by creating systems that represent their discourse community and supports their beliefs. Its understanding that even if you dont necessarily agree but you feel like you belong based off where you feel you belong.

the gap –

claim – he felt that black and whites mixing in society would mess with history and the future for everyone.he felt that skin color defined your intelligence and it would be safer and better if there were not other races.

reasons – he was racist and hated any other race other then white

evidence – he said that studies showed that other races were dangerous and not smart at all.

“The race question in the united states”

• john tyler morgan (1824 – 9107)
• john wanted to defeat two bills (the blair and force bill)
• blair bill – committed federal education funds to the states to combat illiteracy
• force bill – responds to efforts to deny blacks the vote through intimidation and fraud by providing for federal supervision of elections
• fiercely opposed to black suffrage he worked hard to defeat the land
• ratification of the constitution
• to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
• the 14th and 15th amendments furnish a strong support for the

“The Measure of Man”

• Samuel George Morton – Empiricist of polygeny
• they wanted to take a trip to america because they heard of a place filled with over 600 skulls that were from Indians. this would be great for experimenting.
• Not all detractors of blacks were so generous. E. D. Cope, who feared that miscegenation would block the path to heaven
• Agassi z speculated freely and at length, but he amassed no data to support his polygenic theory.

• The craniological treasures which you have been so fortunate as to
  unite in your collection, have in you found a worthy interpreter. Your
  work is equally remarkable for the profundity of its anatomical views, the
  numerical detail of the relations of organic conformation, and the absence
  of those poetical reveries which are the myths of modern physiology (in
  Meigs, 1851,
• he spent several weeks analyzing Morton beliefs.

• Morton began his first and largest work, the Crania Americana
  of 1839

• Morton’s summary chart presents the “hard ” argument of the Crania Americana.