Kaali Roberts
Dr. Brown
English 305
15 September, 2016
Rough
Draft LA Riot
55
people dead, 2,000 injured and 7,000 people arrested: In the year of 1991 one
of America’s most powerful protests took place. It was said that, “the murder
rate was the highest in LA in history” (Webb), published by South Central History. With the brutal
beating of taxi driver, Rodney king and the slaying of Latasha Harlins. Both of
these incidents took place a week apart and sent the Black and Hispanic
community into an uproar. As we observe the social injustices of Rodney King
and Latasha Harlins, we will be able to understand why this event had such an
impact on these communities. Through looking at credible sources who had
covered the LA Riots at the time of the event such as CNN, NBC, CNN, HISTORY
etc. we will be able to closely look at the subject matter and identify why
these two communities were so enraged and how this has affected people
emotionally and physically worldwide. In such a historical movement, protesters,
news reporters and journalists have managed to provide imagery, pathos and
evidence. All of these devices will allow the them to inform the readers about
the injustices that caused …. News Reporters not only covered this story to
bring light to an event but, to allow the audience to connect to an event that
affected a whole group of people.
In
CNN’s article, they start by giving the background information for those who
are uneducated on what the riot stemmed from by informing the reader about the
acquittal of four white Los Angeles Police Department officers in the beating
of Rodney King in 1991. Then, the journalist begins to give an outline of the
order of events and stages the riot took place in. The reporter continues to go
in depth by discussing how many people of different races suffered because of
the injustice that took place in a court room. As Korean store owner’s stores
were burned down due to the killing of Latasha Harlins and places were burned
and looted in reaction to the acquittal of King’s culprits, news stations
manage to spark the interest of viewers to continue reading to watch how the
catastrophic event unfolds.
With
knowledge of this, it brings us to the journalist’s and news reporter’s
constant use of pathos. As they begin to brush on the harsher subjects such as
the innocent lives lost due to this protest, we start to see evocation of
emotion; pathos. Although not everyone has been victim to, or had a family
member/friend victim of brutality or slaying caused by residents we can all
relate in some way with death. As the History Channel Staff begin to discuss
the mass of people injured and killed by stating, “The three days of disorder
killed 55 people, injured almost 2,000, led to 7,000 arrests, and caused nearly
$1 billion in property damage, including the burnings of nearly 4,000 buildings.”
(History), by bringing this to the attention of the reader, identifying the
result of the riot, it elicits the viewers’ sympathy to those who fell victim,
as well as anger because of property damage. Another example of pathos could be
when a nearly all white jury, wish the exception of two people, one being
Hispanic, the other Filipino found the officers not guilty. Protesters and
viewers were outraged about there not being an African American individual on
the jury. This could lead to the feeling of other races outside of the African
American race to feel, in some way, guilty. Knowing of what ethnic background
the jurors were, it leads the audience to sympathize with the African American
community and understand to some degree where some of the anger has stemmed
from.
Although
the news articles and television stations focus on the rebellion formed by the
minority, one can surmise that the target audience can be any one of any race.
Even
though the main focus of this event is wrapped around violence, journalist
manage to carve out imagery and evidence to support their claims of what has
taken place in the months of March and April. In order to support their claims
of burning buildings, looting and killings many news sources provided pictures
or quotes that strengthened their statements.
LA Times staff work on video imagery and textual evidence to cover the
story. LA Times shows a video of the Rodney King Beating to show that this
event did take place and why this video enraged so many people which in turn,
would start a protest. Then, they take it one step further by including the
name of the videographer who caught this moment, a 1st hand and
reliable source; George Holliday. All of this combined imagery allows the
audience to see the symbolism of this event, which is police brutality.
Whilst
remembering the protest in current days, Rodney King’s famous speech, “Can’t we
just all get along?” resembles that of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”
speech, respectively. These two individual’s speeches are compared by the outcome
each speaker had in place; peace. By doing so, Rodney King was able to instill
a sense of urgency by using anaphora both in tone of voice by his plea and with
the hopefulness of the persons viewing his speech to understand what the riot
has caused and how it has affected many. King makes this urgency more apparent
as he repeats his saying more than once to stress the importance of peace, “can
we all get along? Can we get along?” ( Rodney King).
Although
the LA Riots were focused on the injustices African Americans faced, one can
conclude that the target audience can be of any race as injustices are not
limited to one specific group of people. Whether it be Muslim’s protesting for peace
and tolerance and against the misuse of the name of Islam or Native Americans
participating in the Wounded Knee movement as a way to protest mistreatment
from federal agencies.
Works Cited
“The LA Riots: 24 hours Later.” Los Angeles Times Staff. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2016
"Riots Erupt in Los Angeles." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
"Rodney King Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2016.
Webb, Gary. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2016.
Great topic! A very destructive and turbulent time but they're important events to be remembered.
ReplyDeleteUpon reading the intro I wasn't quite sure whether or not the paper would end up being about the rhetorical effectiveness of a news source that covered it, or the rhetorical effectiveness of some agent (or aggregate) in the actual riots. Perhaps it would be important to make this distinction early on. It seems you focus more on how various news sources contributed to the events. I would recommend focusing primarily on just one source (or the event itself) and use other areas as support.
When using the information of your sources, I wouldn't say that it's required to use phrases like "so and so says" or introduce it like that. I would talk objectively about the riots themselves and then use information about it that news sources provided through citation, using direct quotes only if necessary.
I understand what you mean when you say that these mass protests have a very broad audience, and the pain that sparks them is something most people can empathize with, but I think more could be said on who the intended audience of this riot was, or who the audience of the media's interpretation of it was. These two possibilities are distinct and it would be important to focus on one or the other.
Likewise, analyzing the use of ethos, pathos, and logos would require a clear distinction of the object of study (the actual riot or somebody's coverage of it). Because the riot itself was chaotic and I don't think a clear individual can be attributed to all the actions committed within it, perhaps these terms won't apply as greatly if you chose the violent aggregate as the object of study, but the terms could be employed in some distinct way regardless.
The context is clear and background information is educational. I have learned things. It's a great topic for this class.
Really cool paper! I read through Micah’s comment and a majority of the things that I wanted to point out were very similar. First off, it’s a very cool paper. I love the topic and I think you did a great job organizing it. However, when we are talking about the clarity of your argument I was a little confused about a few things. You start off discussing the influence that these deaths had on two communities, and then you discuss the rhetorical appeals used by the media, but you finish talking about a speech given by Rodney King and the influences that his speech had. I think the same can be said of your audience. When I started reading it I thought the audience was the two communities you keep reference in your paper, but then in your concluding paragraph you explicitly state that the target audience can be any race or group that suffers an injustice. I think that your paper could benefit from explicitly stating your audience and rhetorical artifact, and keeping it consistent throughout. Otherwise it can be a little unclear to the reader.
ReplyDeleteI think that you do a great job persuading your reader, the references you make to support your claims are all very powerful. I think if you had more analysis and less background the paper would be a little more argumentative. In addition, rearranging the format of your arguments. A lot of times you provide background information, and then say why this is an example of whatever rhetorical appeals. If you started with “the media made rhetorical appeals to pathos by evoking emotional imagery, trigger words, etc. Some example of this are X, Y and Z”. This structure is easier to follow and directly links your claims to your evidence to your reasons.
Very interesting topic, and a great topic choice for this paper, within the first paragraph however, I would comment and agree with Micah that although the subject of your paper seems to be the LA Riots, within the first paragraph it is hard to understand whether or not it is the riots you are analyzing, or the news stations covering said riots. With that said I believe the rest of your paper is then affected by this choice of talking about either the actual riots, or the news coverage and becomes at times hard to understand what points you are attempting to make.
ReplyDeleteAlso try to refrain from losing sight of what the topics of the paper is, during your paper you mainly stay on one topic, but at certain junctures it seems as though you trail off and begin to add unnecessary information. For example I feel as though you could go without the paragraph on “Rodney King’s famous speech” although its context may be relevant for some type of rhetorical analysis, I don’t believe it relates or adds to what you are attempting to discuss within your paper.
The overall structure and organization for your paper seems to be scatterbrained at times, as a suggestion I would attempt to re-organize some of the information you have provided into sections that are more related to one another. I believe this would make it easier for you to provide examples and proof to back your allegations of certain uses of E/P/L.
You have a lot of good information within your essay, I believe that once reorganized this information could better be utilized to back the points you are attempting to make. Overall I found this analysis to be very interesting and very viable for the subject we are writing about.
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ReplyDeleteKaali Roberts
ReplyDeleteDr. Brown
English 306
September 26,2016
What I have gathered from peer review groups
What I will make changes on:
Main Idea
• Choose one subject in which I will zoom in on
• Could talk about why the riot got some much coverage on a specific news station
Body paragraphs
• Do not at so much information
• Focus on EPL
• If addressing news as main idea; don’t stray off into Rodney King’s speech
• Do not address all news platforms, try to stick to one
Conclusion
• Try not to add new information
• Do a restatement of all of your points being made
• Can add a quote during the end that relates to surmising analysis