How does Steele combine issues of race and class rhetorically? What sort of tropes or devices does she use to make this combination? How can issues of race and class be described in the same way?
Answer ALL these questions in your response!!
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Steele combines race and class in the sense that with both you must embrace the good and bad. For example, she said, "But the process of identification is usually dialectical. It is just as
necessary to say what we are not as it is to say what we are-so that
finally identification comes about by embracing a polarity of positive and
negative images." She means that both race and class are alike because you must identify the positive and negative to fully understand the issues. She went on to explain,"One might say that the positive images
of one lined up with the negative images of the other." This meaning that although they are defined differently, the differences relate them to one another.
An example of a trope she used to make this combination was when she wrote about the imaginary character,Sam, her family used. The rhetorical significance of this was that from this they created as she explained "a negative instruction manual in class identity." This character was used to portray what they should not be.
You can relate issues of class and race in the same way because this character they created was used to define class. It was an example of what people should strive not to be. She said, "It never occurred to us that
he looked very much like the white racist stereotype of blacks, or that he
might have been a manifestation of our own racial self-hatred." They used this as a character that everyone thought "blacks" were, and made a point not to be that.
The middle-class values by which we were raised-the work ethic, the
importance of education, the value of property ownership, of
respectability, of "getting ahead," of stable family life, of initiative,
of self-reliance, etc.-are, in themselves, raceless and even
assimilationist.
The above comment was by
-A. Burchel!-
In Shelby Steele's essay, "On Being Black and Middle Class" the author combines the issued of race and class rhetorically so that the two subjects are seperate and not dependent on each other. Steele describes and disagrees with the view that the success of a black person is directly dependent on the success of the black community. She says "the victim-focused black identity encourages the individual to feel that
his advancement depends almost entirely on that of the group." Unlike her friend at the beginning of the essay, Steel believe class systems do seperate the black community, allowing the individual to achive and celebrate independent success.
She uses an anticdote about her childhood in a middle class black family to illustrate the diffrences felt by her class from the lower class blacks. She describes how her family spoke of a fictional character "Sam" to illustrate the faults and flaws of lowerclass people. Saying "Sam never thinks about
tomorrow. He wants it now or he doesn't care about it." And about work, "He doesnt care too much for that." This loose interpritation, and somewhat discriminatory view, allows the reader to see into Steel's opinion of the class system in the black community.
In the same way, we could use a fictional interpriation of the lower white class to characterize their faults and flaws. Popular characters based on the southern redneck illustrate the racist, ignorent, "dirty", slow speakers commonly associated with low class whites.
--Emerson-->
Steele combines the issue of race and class rhetorically by countering out one for the other. Steele Say, “The middle-class values by which we were raised-the work ethic, the importance of education, the value of property ownership, of respectability, of “getting ahead,” of stable family life, of initiative, of self-reliance, ect.-are, in themselves, raceless and even assimilationist.” In this quote she states that the values of the average middle class person are raceless. When she is dicsussing her friend she doesn’t see how he doesn’t agree with the term “black middle class”. She compares their conversation to the problems of a marriage coming to the light.
Steele says in her writing, “ This pattern asks us to see ourselves as an embattled minority, and it urges an adversarial stance toward the mainstream, an emphasis on ethnic consciousness over individualism. It is organized around an implied separatism.” The rhetorical significance of this trope, is the use of the word pattern. The pattern that she is refering to is black people and what others see their standards as. The quote dicusses black people and how they are seen as a minority and not an equal. The issue of race and class can be described in the same way by because majority of the time race is associated with only with race. The class of person is clearly effected by race but often times class is ignored.
--S. Hall!
How does Steele combine issues of race and class rhetorically?
She combines race and class rhetorically by saying “And today, when I honestly look at my life and the lives of many other middle-class blacks I know, I can see that race never fully explained our situation in American society…. It, was like the suddenly sharp vision one has at the end of a burdensome marriage when all the long-repressed incompatibilities come undeniably to light.” This is rhetorically used in the sense that she understood just how much class and race influenced how much she and her fellow African-Americans could succeed in life.
What sort of tropes or devices does she use to make this combination?
She uses a metaphor to describe the how race and class together can be like “the end of a burdensome marriage” when they are finally realized.
How can issues of race and class be described in the same way?
They can be described in the same way by coming to terms that people, especially African-Americans, aren’t confined to just race or class, but that they are just like everybody else.
~*~W. Horne~*~
In Shelby Steele's "On Being Black and Middle Class," Steele combines the issues of race and social class by making them seem different but having an effect on one another. She explains that a black man with a Ph.D. is still a black man (another word is used). This meaning that no matter how many achievements or accomplishments an African American has, he will still be label by his race; which is black.
She trope she uses is the old Malcom X quote. Malcom X said "What is a black man with a Ph.D? Answer: A ------." She uses this to show that, once again, a black individual, no matter there achievements (in this case a Ph.D), they will still be labeled a ------ or black.
Race and class can be described in the same way as things that cancel on another out. Race can cancel class/achievements out like in the quote above; or class can cancel race out. For example, if a poor white male was walking the street; you wouldn't say white guy, you'd say poor man. In different scenarios, one can cancel the other out.
- Jacob P. Fleming
In Shelby Steele's essay "On Black and Middle Class" the author combines the issue of race and class rhetorically by combining the two and showing that they are two different things, but the people in the different "classes" depend on race to determine where your going to be. "Of course when you think about it, class and race is both similar in some ways and also naturally opposed. They are two forms of collective identity with boundaries that intersect. But whether they clash or peacefully coexist has much to do with how they are defined." Shelby states this to basically tell the readers that race and class both intertwine with one another.
An example of a trope is where Steele uses "Sam" to shows how blacks should not be and her interpretation of how we thought the blacks were.
The relationship between race and class can be describe in the same way because one class can interpret them being better than another and then in race one group can think they are better than another also, but, really they only have different advantages because of how the world is.
--Danielle Fivecoat.
During the mid-nineteen hundreds, many middle-class blacks, like Shelby Steele, and other middle-class blacks were not recognized as middle class even if they could be considered middle-class. In Steele's essay on “On Being Black and Middle Class" she combines the issue of race and class by making seem the exact opposite; however they have an effect on one another. Throughout the essay, she combines the issue of race and class by using tropes and she also combines them rhetorically.
Shelby Steele, in her essay, she combines the issue of race and class by stating that it is impossible for her to sit in my single-family house with two cars in the driveway and a swing set in the back yard and not see the role class has played in her life. This is a rhetorical and it’s a trope because this is a form of contradiction. She contradicts herself because she states that it is impossible to recognize the role class has played in her, where it is seen that she is a successful black woman. Shelby Steele also quotes a well-known civil rights leader Malcolm X. “What is a black man with a Ph.D? Answer: A n-word.” This is an important rhetorical device because it shows that once you’re labeled as a black no matter how hard you work to achieve you always be a n-word. The issue of race and class can be described in a same way because if you’re a black you’re not able to work hard and improve your class.
T.Hearst ™
In our recent readings we have read “On Being Black and Middle Class,” by Shelby Steele. In this essay, Steele combines issues of race and class. She does this rhetorically by connecting the two issues by making them seem different but still having an effect on one another. For example, she said that her class-conditioning was the surest way to overcome racial barriers. This displays how she has combined the issues of race and class in her life.
The trope that she used came from Malcolm X. He quoted, “What is a black man with a Ph. D?” The answered is considered a nobody; only labeled by the color of his skin, not the goals and achievements that he has accomplished. With the help of the quote, she explains that no matter how hard a black person works they will always be labeled as “black.”
Race and class can be described in the same way because one can seem or appear to be superior over the other. For example, during this time period whites were thought of as superior to blacks and a middle class citizen is considered superior to a lower class citizen. As you can see, race and class can be described in the same way.
-V. Gobble
In the readings of this week, Shelby Steele's, "On Being Black and Middle Class," Steele combined the issues of race and class rhetorically, by depending on each other. For example she says, "What became clear to me is that people like myself, my friend and middle-class blacks generally, are caught in a very specific double bind that keeps two equally powerful elements of our identity at odds with each other. " She clearly states that they 'double bind' each other, also contradicting each other.
In comparing the "double bind" and tension she live in the sixties she uses a trope to describe what she felt. "One of the qualities of a double bind is that one feels it more than sees it, and I distinctly remember the tension and strange sense of dishonesty I felt in those days as I moved back and forth like a bigamist between the demands of class and race." This simile compares where she lived, to race of how she was judged.
Race and Class can be described the same way, by a biased opinion. Or as in times like the sixties, if you were an "African American" you were thought to be black, because at that time, Whites, were superior to Blacks. As Martin Luther King once said "We are all created equal" not superior to race or color, everyone should be treated the same.
--ashley bayse :)
Shelby Steele's "On Being Black and Middle Class" describes the lives of African Americans in relation to social classes. She combines race rhetorically by giving examples of how although they are often considered interchangeable, race and social class do not always directly affect each other. She explains this idea when she says, "Black though I may be, it is impossible for me to sit in my single-family house with two cars in the driveway and a swing set in the back yard and not see the role class has played in my life." She strives to explain that though she may be black, her race does not necessarily determine who she is or what social class she is a part of.
When describing the moment of her realization about race and class, she says, "It was like the suddenly sharp vision one has at the end of a burdensome; marriage when all the long-repressed incompatibilities come undeniably to light." This similie is used to explain her realization that how class and race relate depend on how they are defined. When "black" and "middle-class" are used in opposing terms, they can never co-exist.
However, issues of race and class can be described in the same way because class is often determined by race. Because of stereotypes, like the assumption that people of the middle-class are white or African Americans are of lower classes, we automatically connect the two. Even Steele's friend was using these stereotypes by making Steele feel guilty for being a black person of the middle class. These types of stereotypes will not be overcome until people accept that a certain race is not necessarily confined to a certain social class.
E. Styers
In the readings of this week, Shelby Steele's, "On Being Black and Middle Class," Steele combined the issues of race and class rhetorically, by depending on each other. For example she says, "What became clear to me is that people like myself, my friend and middle-class blacks generally, are caught in a very specific double bind that keeps two equally powerful elements of our identity at odds with each other. " She clearly states that they 'double bind' each other, also contradicting each other.
In comparing the "double bind" and tension she lived in during sixties. She uses a trope to describe what she felt. "One of the qualities of a double bind is that one feels it more than sees it, and I distinctly remember the tension and strange sense of dishonesty I felt in those days as I moved back and forth like a bigamist between the demands of class and race." This simile compares where she lived, to race of how she was judged.
Race and Class can be described the same way, by a biased opinion. Or as in times like the sixties, if you were an "African American" you were thought to be in the lower class, because at that time, Whites, were superior to Blacks. As Martin Luther King once said "We are all created equal" not superior to race or color, everyone should be treated the same.
--ashley bayse :)
THE PREVIOUS ONE IS MESSED UP!
In Shelby Steele's "On Being Black and Middle Class," Shelby combines the issue of race and class rhetorically by making them two separate things that have an effect on each other. She makes a quote in her writing. It says “After all, since when had white America taken note of anything but color when it came to blacks? He then reminded me of an old Malcolm X line that had been popular in the sixties. Question: What is a black man with a Ph. D.? Answer: A nigger.” Here we can see that Shelby was trying to show that no matter what social class a black person was, he would still be judged because of his color.
One example of a trope Steele uses is when she quotes" But now, hearing my friend's comment was like hearing a priest from a church I'd grown disenchanted with. I understood him, but my faith was weak." Here she is referring to the comment about how the words "Black Middle Class" is a contradiction. Shelby used to believe that this statement was true because of all the racial conflicts that were going on meanwhile she was in high school and in college. Now, however; she believed that race had nothing to do with what class you were in. She uses this simile to help the reader's understand the way she felt about this comment.
Issues of race and social class can be described as the same. One class thinks it better than the other, while one race thinks it better than the other. Also classes are judge by the way they seem to be or look, while with race, people usually judge you by your color.
-Cindy Flores :)
Shelby Steele discusses the subject of race and class in her selection “On Being Black and Middle Class”. In “On Being Black and Middle Class” she uses rhetoric to show that these two subjects are different but at the same time relate to each other. She says, “Of course when you think about it, class and race are both similar in some ways and also naturally opposed. They are two forms of collective identity with boundaries that intersect. But whether they clash or peacefully coexist has much to do with how they are defined.” In this excerpt she explains that both are the same because “they are two forms of collective identity” many people uses these terms, or terms like them, to places themselves in categories. Though these two subjects “intersect” Steele seems to believe that race over powers the category of class. For example, she says, “After all, since when had white America taken note of anything but color when it came to blacks? He then reminded me of an old Malcolm X line that had been popular in the sixties. Question: What is a black man with a Ph.D.? Answer: A nigger.” She shows that she believes that because of course you would think that any person with a Ph.D. would be very successful but when I black man has a Ph.D. it doesn’t make a difference. She also later speaks about her professor and how he made comments that “pressured me to choose between my class identification, which had contributed
to my being a college student and a member of the debating team, and my desperate desire to be ‘black.’” She uses powerful examples in her writing to prove her point and that is a manner of rhetoric.
A little over halfway through her work she uses a trope in the form of a metaphor. She says: “I had become a furnace of rage. The year was 1967, and I had been…. completely at one with the victim-focused black identity This identity gave me the license, and the impunity, to unleash upon this professor one of those volcanic eruptions of racial indignation familiar to us from the novels of Richard Wright.” She uses this trope to display the amount of anger she began to have toward these identities of class and race and how “one must be repressed to appease the other.”
The terms class and race, in my opinion cannot really be defined in the same way, but they do relate in a couple of ways. Both are ways of classification. You are either Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, or European on the racial side, or rich, middle class, or poor on the social class side. They are both held on some sort of level. Some racial groups tend to think that they are better than another, and social classes do the same.
-L. Gonzalez!
Shelby Steele connected race and social class rhetorically when he stated, “Still, hate or love aside, it is fundamentally true that my middle-class identity involved a dissociation from images of lower-class black life and a corresponding identification with values and patterns of responsibility that are common to the middle class everywhere.” As an African American in the middle class, he was more common to an average middle class white person. Therefore, there is a cut of an image of the stereotypical lower class African American.
A trope that he used to describe his anger, “Instead, my anger, itself the hair-trigger expression of a long-repressed double bind, not only cut me off from the best of my own resources, it also distorted the nature of my true racial problem.” He realized that anger can cause one to not think rationally as one should, and it made him just like anyone else who was wrong.
Race and class may be described in the same way when many people refer that most whites have a higher income than African Americans. When people look at African Americans, they automatically assume that they are from the lower class. People look at the whites in a different view, because many also think that they tend to be wealthier than others. Some may say that race identifies an individual’s social class, but it does not always. Those are mostly stereotypes that people just cannot tell what is false from reality.
*T.Xiong*
In my studies of Shelby Steele's "On Being Black and Middle Class," I have found that she combines the issues of race and social class rhetorically by making them seem like they are two totally different things but having sine sort a effect on the other. For example she said the her class-conditioning was the surest way to overcome racial barriers.
Steele uses an old Malcom X quote as her trope, "What is a black man with a Ph. D.?" The answered is considered a nobody; only labeled by the color of his skin, not the goals and achievements that he has accomplished. With this quote she is trying to say that even though somebody that is black has accomplished many things they are still considered black.
Race and class can be described in the same way because one can be more supirior than the other. For example during this time whites were considered better than blacks and middle class were considered better than lower class. In conclusion race and class can work the same way.
-Sam Everhart-
Shelby steele was a man
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