Summary Of Fairey's We The People: Poster On Diversity

We the People: Poster on Diversity and Inclusion in America Images are worth a thousand words, right? Clichéd, when it comes to this image by Fairey, it rings true. Fairey’s arguably most well-known piece of work is the Hope poster. He is known for using many rhetorical strategies in his work to get a point across without saying what the point is, but he also leaves a lot up for interpretation. In this specific image, Fairey mainly uses pathos and logos to call on our ethics and emotion to make his audience see what he wants them to see. Amongst other visual elements used, the ones most evident are focal points, such as the attire of the figures and the color scheme, which includes red, white, and blue. Personal characteristics are used heavily;

Women can look at this image no matter their race and feel pride because there can be a sense of sisterhood, so to speak, from woman to woman. To lightly touch on color scheme, the sense of pride can also come from seeing the red, white, and blue. Even the least of patriotic parties can see the appeal to the ingrained nationalism in us all. The fact that these women are multicultural makes an emotional appeal, as it can be argued that people of these cultures can look at these women and relate it to their own internalized experiences and feel anything from pride to sadness. Personal characteristics are a huge factor in the image’s outcome. There seems to be a variety of women from other cultures. The Latina woman seems to have thicker eye brows, wavy hair, and a sharp facial structure. The second woman (who appears to be Muslim) has a stern look, groomed eye brows and a lot of eye makeup. Finally, the young girl seems to just have her hair as her distinguishing feature, as she has a bare face and little facial

The text used at the bottom of the image is used to make the viewer of the image thinking why each sentence is under each woman. So, we must make assumptions why dignity is under the Latina woman, because there is a stereotype that the certain demographic has some tie to dignity. Or because people do not seem to understand her chador, thus they fear her. Or is it simply easy to fear her for the crimes committed by those before her with their radical ideals. Finally, the point about protecting each other is under the African American girl. This is because there seems to be a stigma that the African American population is not protected by its government, so it is up to citizens to stand up for them. Without the text here, the image would still make sense but it would not be displaying the same message that it is with the text. The most evident visual element used is focal points. The American flag chador catches the eye almost immediately. This is because Muslim women are the most targeted in America especially after the last election, the one this poster was made in response to. The eye moves from her chador to the flower in the Latina woman’s hair ten down to her smirk. It makes the viewer question why she is smirking, is she in on something that the rest of us are not? Finally, the eye moves over to the young African American girl’s shirt then to her