Heather Holcomb: Practicum 1

/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBb9F9A7pi4

The video “We The People” visually addresses American immigration, representation, bigotry, racisms, and the American politics behind it all. The video appears to display Americans protesting. Throughout the video we keep seeing artistic posters featuring the faces of minorities in red, white, and blue. The art on the posters aims to show the faces of American’s; the faces that look very different and unique. This video aims to show that Americans are not all white men, and policy and law should reflect that. One poster, featuring a woman wearing an American flag as a hijab, says “we the people are greater than fear.” This poster addresses controversy at the heart of American politics. The preamble of the constitution begins, “We the people of the United States of America…” The poster, as well as the title of the video, use the first three words to represent Americans. The following statement in the hijab example addresses the widespread fear and uncertainty of Muslim peoples following wars in America. Not only does this poster and this video aim to illustrate that the face of a Muslim woman and the face of an American woman can be one in the same, but it states we are better than fearing whole groups of people based on their looks. What this video illustrates, is that Americans have many different ethnicities and cultures and are all deserving of representation and fair treatment. These Americans are demanding through protest, voice, and vote representation even though the groups in the video often are subject to policy that does the opposite of help them.

The core concept of American politics this video underlines is protest: freedom of speech. There is nothing more American than protest and using your voice to advocate for equal rights. In the video we hear the lyric, “I will overcome the world even with the eyes against me.” This lyric acknowledges bigotry and racisms that stands between minorities and equal rights in America, and the lyric says I will not stand for that. Our country was founded on this mentality. This video encourages Americans to fight back against injustice with their voice and their vote. So much of politics is advocating for the correct political representative to make things happen. This specific video was made during the 2017 election to encourage people to vote against hate, against restrictive immigration rules, to protect peoples lands, etc.

Discussion Questions:

1) Is dissent patriotic?

2) What is protest? Would you consider the January 6th storm on Washington a protest?

3) Why do you think the people in the video were crying?

4) What role would posters, like the ones in the video, play in an election?

5) Do you feel this video supports/does not support the emigration of individuals into America? Why do you think that?

6) What do the people in the video have in common? What do you think they are advocating for politically?

7) What values are portrayed in this video? How does that relate to the American government?

How I felt about this assignment…

I thought this was a good assignment. I felt a bit lost at first and am still unsure that completed this exactly right. The assignment felt a bit difficult because the type of video seemed restrictive. I think with a few adjustments this assignment would be a good one to repeat.