Rhetorical Blog #3

I was skeptical about this article before I read it, because I didn’t think it was going to appeal to my tastes, but it was a pretty dope piece of writing. I wish I could just submit that as my profile essay. The author of this piece was extremely good with giving us details. There were not many that he left out. He even included her typical conversation endings. A great example of this is where he says
“On most of those magazine covers, Badu is elegant and graceful, defiant and iconic, like a sixties “Black Is Beautiful” poster. In person she’s just another five-foot-two, black, thin, pretty, vegan artist with light greenish-brown eyes. For our interview and photo shoot she wore her hair long; her jewelry consisted of a gold bracelet on her left wrist and a silver ring around her left forefinger. She looked as if she’d just come from a morning cruising thrift shops, wearing a black shirt, white plaid pants, purple leggings, and an apron because she’d forgotten to put on a belt. She walked around her house barefoot and began and ended conversations with the word “peace.”
When I read this paragraph, I felt as if I was having the conversation with her. It was really nice to place my own picture in my head, just by reading a few sentences. When I saw the music video that was showed in class, it was the complete opposite of what I had expected because she was all done up in makeup and nice clothes, but we were let into her personal life and basically saw what she lounges around the house in. I believe from the clothes she was wearing, that she really does not want to be a celebrity because if she had wanted to be a celebrity she would’ve worn nice clothes, make-up and all these other accessories for the interview, but she’s a down to earth lady.
Constantly, we are reminded that Badu is from Dallas aka Dirty Dirty D-Town, and she lives on the Southside of the city. Since I’m a tourist to this state, but I guess the Southside of Dallas used to be the place to be, but a few years later, it’s a thug’s mansion. It’s described here by both the writer and Badu.
“This used to be one of the most beautiful neighborhoods ever,” Badu said as we drove along Pennsylvania Avenue in South Dallas. “Families were active, lawns were beautiful, trees looked nice, people put up Christmas lights at Christmastime. It was a neighborhood. Now I feel like I’m in New Orleans after Katrina.” We turned onto some of the cross streets. Many houses were abandoned, while most just looked worn-out. Plenty had their windows boarded up. Yards were muddy, and stray dogs walked slowly down the street. “South Dallas dogs are so slow,” said Badu with a chuckle. We drove some more. “South Dallas used to be called Sunny South Dallas,” Badu said, sighing. “It’s not called that anymore.” It was the usual suspects, she said: “Time, drugs, lack of money, lack of education, lack of willpower.”
Once I read this, it reminded me of some cities up in New England that used to be really popular, but now you would not drive through the west side of Boston or any of the suburbs of Boston. It’s sad that these things happen to the nice cities, but different groups of people can change a town drastically.
I think it’s pretty tight that she’s holding down her hometown and is not abandoning it at all. That takes a lot of heart, even if she is the only one of wealth in that area. I also like how she bought that theatre and leases it out for performers. All it takes is a few big shows to happen there and you could raise a lot of money. Badu is a cool lady, from the writing, and is representing Southside D-Town.