Watch a video of a speech or other piece of oral rhetoric (monologues, testimony, etc.) relevant to the social context of its time—which you will locate, determine, and explain through researching that social context using strategies discussed in unit 2. (I chose a monologue from hidden figures) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNK8FCFpmm4&t=9s
In an academic essay of 5-6 pages, use the rhetorical tools we’ve covered in this and prior units, particularly those in Harris’s “Taking an Approach” chapter in Rewriting, to engage with an idea or ideas you encounter in the speech through the lens of Lincoln’s Second Annual Address to Congress, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-annual-message-9
particularly the paragraph which contains “The dogmas of our quiet past are inadequate to our stormy present…as our cause is new, we must think anew and act anew.” (The paragraph before the last one is the most important one, he talks about racism)Bring forward and/or counter ideas in the original speech through Lincoln’s lens: must we think anew? Must we act anew? If so, how? If not, why not?
America has come a long way regarding racism. It started with slavery, and it slowly got better, but how much better did it get? Did the people in America stop discriminating and judging people for their race? In my essay, I will use Lincoln’s Second Annual Address to Congress as a lens to view The monologue from Hidden Figures. Lincoln’s address was truly revolutionizing, and it played an essential role in America’s history. He says, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”(Lincoln) He implies that we have to stop being under the spell of slavery, and we must think and act anew. The monologue from Hidden Figures is an excellent representation of racism in the 1960s. When Katherine’s boss reprimands her for taking long breaks, she tells him, “there are no bathrooms for me here,” and makes him aware that the nearest colored bathroom at NASA is half a mile away from their office. I will use both Abraham Lincoln’s address and the monologue from Hidden Figures to analyze the history of racism in America and to see if anything changed, how it changed, and what we can do.
