Walls Closing In
This third unit of our Humanities class this term, Rhetoric, was all about investigating the ways rhetoric can work to motivate people to be engaged. The same appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos from our last unit can be used to analyze many forms of art, not just written texts. We went on a Field Experience to Marquette Park to visit the Living Memorial to Martin Luther King and the Chicago Freedom Movement, a piece of public art erected in recognition of the anti-segregation march held there in 1966. While we were there, we met Sadia Nawab, the Director of Arts and Culture at non-profit community organization Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). She was one of the primary drivers behind the creation and installation of the project. We also explored how artists use their work as a platform to send political messages, and how Cuban art fed Africa's liberation struggles.
For this Action Project, we had to look at an important social topic in today's society and make an art piece related to it. For my topic, I chose youth incarceration, and for my art medium, I chose a poem. We also had to make an artist's statement about the piece, and describe it and the rhetorical appeals it has in more detail. Below is both my poem and my Artist's Statement.
Artist's Statement:
My name is WH. I’m sixteen years old and a Junior at Global Citizen Experience Lab School. I chose to make a creative piece of art about youth incarceration because I am currently volunteering with the organization Liberation Library, They give books to incarcerated youth. Volunteering there has opened my eyes to the injustice that surrounds youth in prison and how they are treated.
We need to reconsider our policies on imprisoning young people and try to find a better way to judge and punish crimes committed by those under 18. Thousands of youths are held before they’ve been found delinquent, many for non-violent, low-level offenses, even for behaviors that aren’t criminal violations. Thousands of justice-involved children and adolescents languish in detention centers without even being found delinquent. Youth face dehumanizing conditions when they are locked up in juvenile facilities that look and feel like adult jails and prisons. For advocates and policymakers working to find alternatives to incarceration, ending youth confinement should be a top priority. These are just some of the problems currently going on in the system at the moment.
The system in place is not fair to them, and although we are starting to make steps towards changing that, we need to speed up this process to change things across all state legal systems. People should feel empathetic towards these kids that are getting very harsh punishments for crimes that don’t deserve that level of punishment. People should feel anger at the injustice, and policy makers should take action and responsibility to support the changes with adequate funding.
The medium that I chose to express my message through is a poem. I thought that written word would be a good way to get my message across. Poetry and reading have actually been used historically as an aspect of therapy for youth in prison. I wanted to honor that. I made the poem in two-line stanzas, a format similar to what rappers call “bars” when writing lyrics to songs.
The artwork uses rhetorical elements to help push my message even further. The line “My folks could only watch, heartbroken/Hoping their son would come back, unbroken.” is an example of using rhetoric to pull at the audience’s emotions through mentioning how the author of the poem’s parents would feel. It also uses repetition of the phrase “Time to end the injustice, the damage that does us.” to help emphasize the main point of the poem, which is bringing the injustice of the juvenile justice system to light. It also how much damage it does to youth that are sentenced and to their families.
I would want my artwork to be displayed in a book of poetry or alongside an article about youth incarceration. I believe that it would be most fitting to have it alongside topics that are similar to what it revolves entirely around.
In conclusion, I thought that this was actually a really interesting project to work on. It was enjoyable to learn how to write a poem in a style that would be fitting for one about young people in jail. I also had a good time writing the poem itself, discovering that even though I used to hate writing poems, if I think about it more like a song, it actually becomes quite fun.
For this Action Project, we had to look at an important social topic in today's society and make an art piece related to it. For my topic, I chose youth incarceration, and for my art medium, I chose a poem. We also had to make an artist's statement about the piece, and describe it and the rhetorical appeals it has in more detail. Below is both my poem and my Artist's Statement.
Walls Closing In
Wrongly blamed, and wrongly tried,
The judge found me guilty, and damn I cried.
My folks could only watch, heartbroken,
Hoping their son would come back, unbroken.
Time to end the injustice,
the damage that does us.
Didn’t send me to juvie, oh no, hell no
Shipped off to prison with the lowest of the low.
White walls closing in, a damn sinkhole,
This trap suckin’ light right outta my soul.
Time to end the injustice,
the damage that does us.
Beaten daily, always bruised,
Behind bars and barbs, mistreaten and abused.
Hopes and dreams going down the drain,
Gotta just suck it up, gotta hide the pain.
Time to end the injustice,
the damage that does us.
Folks keep hoping, waiting it out,
Someday I’ll be free, without a doubt.
Artist's Statement:
We need to reconsider our policies on imprisoning young people and try to find a better way to judge and punish crimes committed by those under 18. Thousands of youths are held before they’ve been found delinquent, many for non-violent, low-level offenses, even for behaviors that aren’t criminal violations. Thousands of justice-involved children and adolescents languish in detention centers without even being found delinquent. Youth face dehumanizing conditions when they are locked up in juvenile facilities that look and feel like adult jails and prisons. For advocates and policymakers working to find alternatives to incarceration, ending youth confinement should be a top priority. These are just some of the problems currently going on in the system at the moment.
The system in place is not fair to them, and although we are starting to make steps towards changing that, we need to speed up this process to change things across all state legal systems. People should feel empathetic towards these kids that are getting very harsh punishments for crimes that don’t deserve that level of punishment. People should feel anger at the injustice, and policy makers should take action and responsibility to support the changes with adequate funding.
The medium that I chose to express my message through is a poem. I thought that written word would be a good way to get my message across. Poetry and reading have actually been used historically as an aspect of therapy for youth in prison. I wanted to honor that. I made the poem in two-line stanzas, a format similar to what rappers call “bars” when writing lyrics to songs.
The artwork uses rhetorical elements to help push my message even further. The line “My folks could only watch, heartbroken/Hoping their son would come back, unbroken.” is an example of using rhetoric to pull at the audience’s emotions through mentioning how the author of the poem’s parents would feel. It also uses repetition of the phrase “Time to end the injustice, the damage that does us.” to help emphasize the main point of the poem, which is bringing the injustice of the juvenile justice system to light. It also how much damage it does to youth that are sentenced and to their families.
I would want my artwork to be displayed in a book of poetry or alongside an article about youth incarceration. I believe that it would be most fitting to have it alongside topics that are similar to what it revolves entirely around.
In conclusion, I thought that this was actually a really interesting project to work on. It was enjoyable to learn how to write a poem in a style that would be fitting for one about young people in jail. I also had a good time writing the poem itself, discovering that even though I used to hate writing poems, if I think about it more like a song, it actually becomes quite fun.
Citations:
“Juvenile InJustice: Charging Youth as Adults Is Ineffective, Biased, and Harmful.” Human Impact Partners, humanimpact.org/hipprojects/juvenile-injustice-charging-youth-as-adults-is-ineffective-biased-and-harmful/.
Sawyer, Wendy. “Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie.” Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie | Prison Policy Initiative, www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/youth2018.html.
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