From watching the 13th, I saw how racial segregation was demonstrated throughout history and how it is evolving. It showed how racial segregation was covered up by political issues like the drug war. It also showed how the government plays a role in the inequality in society. Which questions the intentions of the government, whether they want to protect citizens or implement fear within the society to create segregation with hierarchy. I thought that “The newest Jim Crow” was an interesting article because it showed me how segregation has evolved throughout the years and currently as well. This demonstrated that segregation is seen in various forms including the use of technology and as a society, we are misusing the development of technology by using it to lock up more people instead of using it for better purposes. “Let out people go” was the most effective because the structure is included a letter from an inmate who described the living conditions of the prison during the covid pandemic. There were also a lot of statistics that backed up the arguments and pathos used through writing in the first person. “If we, as communities and as a nation, fail to free people in this pandemic because we’d rather risk their lives than allow them to come home earlier than our criminal injustice system originally planned, we should consider ourselves guilty of utter disregard for human life”. This quote invoked self-reflection and helped me connect to Alexandre’s arguments by thinking about how I am subconsciously contributing to racial discrimination. I think that “Let Our People Go” had used the most effective rhetorical appeals by including statistics as logos, the letter of a prisoner as pathos, and Alexander also included some historical influences to appeal to ethos.

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Let Our People Go presentation