Claudia Rankine Persuasive Speech

“There are many people in this world. They will help you if you let them.” Claudia Rankine started with a quote when she were told by someone before as her lesson of her life. She carried on the quote to her speech and advised our students, the youth generation that never afraid to reach out for help. “Get yourself someone. It might be some of us or all of us”. After attending the speech, I understand better about the meaning behind each images and each of her acnetode based on real stories of herself and her friends. She also dissect deeply into the process of research, inform herself about the history and current events from our society. For each slides, she explained the meaning behind each image. She explained the image about the Jim Crow street sign was taken in Georgia,

She said she like the irony about the white house and car and the stop sign between the “white” environment and the Jim Crow sign. She said she chose the image for the opening of the book because it greatly reflected segregation is the heart problem of America. The second image was the animal face. She retold the story of her friend went to a therapist in California. She said color people are worthless in their eyes. The sculpture creator originally created a face of a black happy girl, instead of a disappointed, no emotional face which Rankine choose to appear in the book. She explained the disappointed, emotionless face represented the true about color people instead of a happy proud face of a black girl. Also, she explained why it is a deer instead of some other animal. It is a deer because a deer can run fast, so they can get out of trouble and problems in their difficult life. She also give out some images that no showing on the book about a basketball team with all black and one white team member.