Capstone Proposal Draft

Race in Rhetoric in Major Media outlets

Proposal: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how race is discussed and represented on major media outlets which affect the treatment of African Americans. My goals is to analyze how language used when public discussion of current events effects how we view, stereotype, and communicate with those being in the spotlight, in particular African Americans. I plan to do this by taking a cultural rhetorics approach to this essay.

Obama’s address to NAACP: Mass incarceration of African Americans

Proposal: The purpose of this paper is to examine the speech President Obama gave while addressing the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) National Conference on Mass Incarceration in 2015. I would like not only explore mass incarceration and the effects it’s had on families, but also the speech the President gave. I think it would be beneficial to look at the speech because it gives context to the issue at hand. The president of the United States giving a speech on a relatively controversial issue, during that particular day, time, and audience I think would add to the argument that between 1990-2010 incarceration rates of African American males is exceptionally high compared to that of other races. This is partly due to unspoken class system that stems from slavery to the civil rights era. I want to use this to build on existing conversations about this topic.

LINK: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=speech+on+mass+incarceration&adlt=strict&view=detail&mid=24DEA45DAE0EFE24A02324DEA45DAE0EFE24A023&FORM=VRDGAR