Critical Introduction

Hi everyone! This is Aaliyah, Alysa, Grace and Kaitlyn! We are all College Park Scholars right at the University of Maryland! Within being a scholar, we not only resituate hands on learning and enriching intelligence, we care and are thoroughly involved in our community. Just as we care about our community, we wanted to express others that care about their community as well. The emphasis of protests, especially student protests, exemplify the freedoms and desires to provoke change within communities. We decided to discuss with everyone student protesting because at a crucial time like this, the U.S. has been in a rugged position with each other on the means of equity, empathy and equality. Recently, there has been a drastic increase of natural disasters and violence resulting in social, mental and physical detriments in different communities all across the country. Within figuring out the blueprint to the relief process, many have stood up for reconciliation of civil rights and the sincerity of aiding the wounded, respecting the fallen and protecting those standing within the melting pot of this country. In recent times, young people in America have been speaking up about anti-war, police brutality and equal rights, and many have retaliated at the president and new administration for his tweets and media attention he has been providing. Like the protestors in the sixties, we have also wished to provide change in our community, but in an additional way. They have used their free speech and freedom of assembly to fight back against a tyrannical government, and we have provided change in our community by doing what they did in the sixties plus caring for the hungry and homeless and all other sorts of social factors that reflect on the current generations and beyond. We have been involved in our community for volunteering at food drives and kitchens to show our support for the community. In College Park itself, students like us have been very outspoken in the needs of a stronger democracy, affordable education, providing for the homeless and reconstructing politics. Outside of being a Scholar, Alysa has been involved in numerous student organizations that protest the necessity for affordable education, feminism, and getting big businesses out of politics that can stir controversy and control onto them rather than the people. We can’t wait for you guys to empathize and embrace your inner activists, gain understanding of the tensions and see the fascinations of young people like us stepping up for change since the sixties! The texts “Nixon Nazi” and “Protests, Violence Prompt UC Berkeley to Cancel Milo Yiannopoulos Event” exposed the effects of heavy governmental and party influence and its ideal to suppress the power of the people which resulted in violence and the construct of a revolution.

Both of the texts make arguments against someone in power or a platform. They both make arguments that the men, Nixon and Milo, are associated with fascism and nazism. The texts make this argument to convince people that they are not people to support, and do so in an extreme way. Students at UC Berkeley were against Milo Yiannopoulos speaking at their school because of his hateful rhetoric and reputation. They wanted to protest, show their opposition towards him to stop him from speaking at the school. The students who created the Nazi Nixon poster were against the actions that Nixon had been taking and were anti-war. They wanted people to see their point of view of Nixon not presiding properly by going to the extreme to get others to oppose him as well. Both arguments against Nixon and Milo represent an evaluation or value claim, with the students evaluating that what both men do is not something that they support or think is good.The boldness of the arguments show that college students are extremely passionate, and the protests elude to the fact that even those who are younger can make a big difference and are not afraid to voice their opinions. Our blog makes the argument that both texts use similar techniques like strong pathos and a simple yet bold message on their posters to show their hatred towards these men and argue for people not to support them.

We hope for this to relevant for readers because this is related to college students standing up for a change which is what we, college students, hope to achieve. We are the same age as the same people that are standing up for what they believe in, so we hope it encourages everyone to have a say or at least understand the realities of what is going on. The exigence within protesting is at an all time high right now due to the recent change of our administration. We released this at the perfect time because there is a mass divide between empathy and solitude for the social issues that are being compromised at hand. For example, the debacle at Puerto Rico resulted in the demand for care and empathy on the relief and there was a mass divide between empathy and self-reliance. We expect readers to gain knowledge about the concept of protesting, understanding the realism of the power of the people, and we want them to evaluate where their truths lie between the concepts of protesting and social issues. We want them to understand that young people can make a big difference, so hopefully this will encourage people to take a stand for what they believe in, or vote in the next election. For the world is at a breaking point right now because of the vast differences in the melting pot, but we assure to regain from the voices of our generation and beyond. Our contemporary kairotic moment not only relies on the sixties, but it pertains to our time and it shows the debacle that we are still going through as Americans and forcing us to choose a side that most efficiently is cohesive with our beliefs. Our moment as of right now pertains to social issues, so for example as of today, Donald Trump just released the removal of Obamacare which affects the young adults and those that are under insurance, so it leaves the question of what we are going to do about it. It leaves the example of how we are going to show the world how much we care about the things that we believe in. This entirety of a concept is strictly against partisanship, but it shows how elongated our standings will become. Our main goal isn’t to drive you to a specific party, but for one to figure out where their beliefs lie and how they feel in conducting or supporting them. In this case, people from the sixties and our time fought for the rights of those that were in the war and also fought for equality and equity.

We chose to set up the blog in a way that gives the readers enough background to understand the main arguments used, and then wrap it up with the main point of each source. Kairos and audience were the first blog posts to go up because they are able to inform the reader on what is going on with the protests and who the protests are directed towards. Knowing these things will make it easier for readers to understand the argument presented. After kairos and audience, we chose to present pathos, ethos, and logos, the three arguments that were most prominent in the blogs. Understanding the methods used to create these protests and present the message makes it easier to understand what the overall argument is, which is what came last. We decided that wrapping up the blog with the major argument puts everything that has been analyzed together. We chose this system so the readers would be able to understand the source, analyze the source, and be able to put it all the aspects together in an organized way.
Readers should take two things out of the blog posts we have presented. The first being that college students are capable of having a powerful voice. The second is that using emotion and passion to fuel and argument can make it even more impactful. Both texts portray these things and are something that the audience can use everyday.