protest » This Rhetorical Life

Can’t we find more creative ways to report these stories? The story of Michael Brown is so important, but we get trapped, I think, in this narrow narrative that we’ve been telling for a really long time. —Tessa Brown

Social media and mobile technology has particularly been important for people of color, for working class people, for immigrants, for LGBT people, people who belong to groups who have been traditionally marginalized in the media because they don’t have to not only wait for the media to tell their stories but they also don’t have to wait to have their stories be misconstrued, too, and have their stories misinterpreted. —Sherri Williams

These aren’t just flukes, these aren’t just accidents, these aren’t just deviations from an otherwise decent society. The whole society is bankrupt, its corrupt, its racist, its sexist, its homophobic, and ablist and because this is an entrenched deep issue it is going to have to be an entrenched long-term kind of movement to fight those kinds of things. —Nikeeta Slade

The image shows a screenshot of The Root's tweet featuring an image that went viral during Ferguson protests. The image features a black man with his back to the camera, hands in the air. Facing us are approximately 10 police officers in full riot gear, at least 4 of whom are actively pointing guns at the unarmed citizen.

Tweet from The Root, Aug. 12: “Days after #MikeBrown’s death, #Ferguson looks like a war zone (via @micnews): bit.ly/1orU2GF

Episode 24 focuses on media representations of Ferguson, Missouri after the killing of Mike Brown. As Ben notes in the introduction, This Rhetorical Life focuses on the practice, pedagogy, and public circulation of rhetoric. By focusing on Ferguson, we connect all three: how rhetoric circulates around Ferguson, how our public texts work to either create and sustain or to challenge and resist unjust systems, and how we as writing instructors can help students analyze and flip unjust systems. This episode features interviews with three Syracuse graduate students: Tessa Brown, Sherri Williams, and Nikeeta Slade.

To access a PDF of the full transcript, please click here: Transcript for Episode 24

The music sampled in this podcast is “Strange Arithmetic” by The Coup, “Note Drop” by Broke For Free, “EMO Step Show” by The Custodian of Records, and “This is the End” By Springtide.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

[T]he danger of [sharing posts] is getting swept up when there’s this frantic information exchange, and you find yourself endorsing values and agendas that you would not normally agree with, and that’s a little bit scary. But I think there’s also potential there. This is not to demonize social media as a site of exchange—I think it has tremendous potential. The question here is how to have meaningful conversations. —Yanira Rodriguez

Image of "The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night" blog post--shows image of San Cristobal on fire and the first two paragraphs of the post.

“The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night” via Caracas Chronicles

Episode 22 features a conversation between Ben Kuebrich and Yanira Rodriguez about the representations of the Venezuela protests earlier this year, focusing particularly on how the protests and political situation was represented through the February 20th blog post, “The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep at the Switch.” Kuebrich and Rodriguez raise questions about international news coverage, the representation and circulation of news on social media, and how we can read news articles more critically.

To access a PDF of the full transcript, please click here: Transcript for Episode 22

The music sampled in this podcast is “As Colorful as Ever” by Broke for Free, “Adventure, Darling” by Gillicuddy, and “Y por qué no hacer una canción de Facebook y cantarla en un camión?”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A lot of times, contingent faculty do an incredible job of being incredibly professional in unprofessional working conditions. I think that’s the first big cost: the humanity and the economic stability of those folks who are in contingent positions—many of whom are grad students, people who have earned Master’s degrees or Ph.D.s, and obviously made commitments to being in higher education and commitments to wanting to teach and be with students. And, ironically, that group that is often the most committed to teaching—the most committed to being there for students—has to just struggle to be in something that they love to do. — Eileen Schell

http://www.presenttensejournal.org

We’re happy to share a special collaboration with Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society for Episode 20! Academic labor is something that greatly concerns us as graduate students, and we think it’s an important concern for both full-time faculty and contingent faculty. That’s why this podcast features the voices of both full-time (Eileen Schell and Tony Scott are both Associate Professors of Writing and Rhetoric at Syracuse University) and contingent faculty (Jeff Simmons is a Professional Writing Instructor at Syracuse University).

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 20

The music sampled in this podcast is “N35-40-19-800” by Springtide and “Adventure, Darling” and “Multitudes” by Gillicuddy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I think that when we look at rhetorical means in relation to people who are making decisions that are destroying the planet, that are destroying people’s lives, that are immiserating and incarcerating large numbers of especially people of color around the country and around the globe, we should not be concerned about making them comfortable. We should not be concerned about finding a seat at their table. We should be thinking about how it is that we get together so that collectively we can make them very uncomfortable so that we can change them and—again—to do this collectively, democratically in a way that we discover ourselves and each other. — Nancy Welch

[W]e’re part of this larger national movement, and so when we’re in Syracuse and we have this opportunity in front of us, my thought was that anyone in the country who has been paying attention to the treatment of Bradley Manning should take the opportunity to, you know, call out President Obama on this issue because he ultimately has the power. — Ursula Rozum

Image from August 22nd Interruption of Obama at Henninger High School in Syracuse. Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre shouts through cupped hands as she and Ursula Rozum are escorted out of the gymnasium.

Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre shouts through cupped hands as she and Ursula Rozum are escorted out of Obama’s speech in Syracuse, August 22nd.

Episode 13 is a two-part episode that features an interview with Nancy Welch discussing the motivation for her scholarly work, composition’s activist roots, and the importance of participating in activist collaborations once tenured. The second part features an interview with Ursula Rozum and Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre who interrupted President Obama’s speech at Henninger High School on August 22, 2013 in order to ask Obama to pardon Private Manning through nonviolent free speech action. This podcast blends activism in both academic and public contexts, highlighting the ways that particular rhetorical acts are treated as un/civil.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 13

The music sampled in this podcast is “Biomythos” by Revolution Void, “Indyair” by Springtide, “Note Drop” by Broke for Free, and “Subterranean Zerbie” by The Mork Quartet.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The video provides details referenced in Carlos’s remarks over the next hour, the conditions of racism that John Carlos’s actions responded to, his childhood in Harlem, how he got involved with the Olympic Project for Human Rights, and other details about how the silent protest was developed and interpreted in its time.

The John Carlos Story (image via johncarlos68.com)

Episode 8 features a recording of Dr. John Carlos’s featured session at CCCC in Las Vegas this past March (read the description here). Shannon Carter, Associate Professor of English from Texas A&M-Commerce, has been working closely with Carlos and introduces his keynote by identifying three themes that are relevant to our field: time, collective action, and reciprocity. In his address, Carlos offers insights into the 1968 Mexico City silent protest, his experiences facing racial prejudice, and the choices we all make as writers working for social justice.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 8.

The music sampled in this podcast includes Prefuse 73, J Dilla, Digable Planets, Curtis Mayfield, & Mos Def.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This Rhetorical Life

Episode 20: Thinking Collectively about Academic Labor

Episode 13: Uncivil Rhetoric