Lighter (and Darker) Side of Rhetoric

This is it folks. I know I’ve joked about graduating (what up Ross), but I will miss this so much. I wish I won the lottery, so I can continue my academic pursuits. But in the real world, money trumps when you have a family to consider. 

I’ve enjoyed this class the most this semester. It was engaging; it was interesting; and it was important. Does anyone remember what I said the first day of class?

I’ll help you out. It went something like: “I think rhetoric is cool and all, but it just isn’t really my thing.” Like my 28 years of life has taught me best, I will eat my words a lot, and it’s time once again, so… That was stupid of me to say, and I most definitely think rhetoric is “my thing.” (I was just too scared to admit it (and I had to compete with Ross to be the coolest kid in the class)). Ooooh! Sick burn! I kid, I kid. Ross is way cooler than me.

All jokes aside, the blogging for this class was a different experience than usual for me. I’ve done a decent amount of blogging for classes. But I’ve never been so attached to what I had to write. From Enheduanna to the Peltier section that led me to current modern day events, I’ve been enthralled by rhetoric (mostly macro questions of gendered rhetoric, but I’ve started leaning towards Native issues now).

I can’t stop thinking about those damn Uranium mines in that reservation. I think about how the economic machine keeps churning to in the destruction of our lands, but even worse, the blatant human rights violations that are glossed over because they’re “Indians”. If they were poisoning “white” water, Erin Brockavich would be over there getting news coverage and a class action settlement. But we hear nothing. And so we do nothing.

Make no mistake though; corporations will poison anyone for profit. They just know whom they can kill and get away with it. For me, rhetorics has taken a dark turn. At its deepest, darkest side, rhetoric finds people and things to kill while keeping a smile on everyone else’s face. It declares innocence while committing global extinction. All we have left is to respond with our own force of rhetoric: one that looks to heal and revive what is being destroyed.

That’s the problem though. We are always reacting to the negative rhetoric of the world. They have the upper hand after all, so we are playing on their turf, by their rules. Are the corporations the new colonizers? Are all of us as consumers the colonized? The mechanisms seem to be the same, which means disenfranchised groups such as Native Americans are doubly dealing with this bullshit all over again.

Wow. That got way darker from where I started out. And since this is my last blog for college ever, Ross ;), I’d like to end on a lighter note. Keep impassioned, keep learning, and keep looking for bridges that you can extend to others. Peace out!