Voice Ain’t Broke

by Mya Evans

They wanna put me in a box

They might as well push me off the docks

Drying the well of creativity 

Society is putting me in captivity 

They steal my paintbrushes and my paints

They wanna act as if they saints

They hand me a pencil carved from they hand

Tell me to live in they land 

I must conform and be bland

Tell me I’m broken like a porcelain doll

I should always speak like I’m on a professional phone call 

They glue my mouth with super glue 

To stop the nonsense that I spew

I can talk in perfect standard english 

And codemesh when I wanna

They wanna cry like a prima donna

Can’t put a zipper on my mouth 

If you try and shut me down, things will go south 

They don’t have the right to erase culture like rain

Cannot force everyone to be plain

What is normal?

Why do ya always gotta be so formal?

Speak loudly 

Speak proudly 

You don’t need to standard

Don’t let yourself be slandered 

If we can accept 

People won’t feel swept

End the hate

There’s no need for debate

For too long we believed the lies

We let them plot our demise 

I believe my voice is proper 

It’s worth more than a copper 

The oppressor don’t even speak perfect 

But they don’t want us to inspect 

I say our englishes give us power

Use it to empower 

    The argument made in the rhetorical text I created, “Voice Ain’t Broke”, is that people should not let society erase their dialects and Englishes. The intended audience is my community; people who have erased themselves and their culture to fit in the box society wants them to. Many immigrant families and the black community can relate to the message of my poem. The genre I selected was a poem because it is an easily accessible work and easy to read. A poem is similar to a song where it is rhythmic and employs a short structure to keep the reader’s attention. I wanted to use a medium where I could combine African American Vernacular English and standard English and I felt poetry was the best method.

    Pathos is shown throughout the poem in the utilization of figurative language. I used similes and metaphors to make comparisons between simple items and understandable concepts. Examples of the similes are “Tell me I’m broken like a porcelain doll” and “They wanna cry like a prima donna”.  Examples of the metaphors are “Society is putting me in captivity” and “They steal my paintbrushes and my paints”. The use of figurative language allowed me to depict my emotions towards the subject more accurately and engage the reader’s imagination to visualize the concepts and emotions. 

    Ethos was used in my piece through phrasing and vocabulary to showcase my credibility as an Black author. Examples of this language are “They wanna act as if they saints” and “Why do ya always gotta be so formal?”. The use of African American Vernacular English makes my background and ethnicity clear, is appropriate language for the audience, and makes me ethically likable.

The argument made in the rhetorical meme I created is that people should not let society erase their dialects and Englishes. People should be able to use their dialects and code mesh even in professional and academic settings. It is a valid form of writing as expressed through numerous acclaimed articles and novels. Shutting down students at a young age because they speak differently discourages amazing written works from being produced and erases people’s identity and their personal stories. 

    My intended audience was students and the young generation. I selected to create a meme to specifically target this audience as they are known to create and share this genre heavily. Using a humorous image that is well known in that community as well as a format that is familiar to them will help my audience understand the message clearly and they’ll gravitate towards it. I chose to target students and young generations because teachers discourage the use of other Englishes. Their belief that it’s not professional or appropriate to use in an academic setting is hypocritical because there are plenty of examples of academic essays, articles, and fictional works written in the author’s dialect or code meshed. These works are proven to be successful through awards and accolades. I wanted to point out this fact to students to encourage them that they should not erase their languages from their tongues. 

    I used pathos through the chosen image. This image is supposed to invoke feelings of anger, relatability, and spite towards teachers trying to engrave this belief into their heads. The emotional tone through the image shows humor, frustration, and confusion. I used a popular image that statistically many audience members would be familiar with so they wouldn’t have to overanalyze the message or feelings I was trying to convey. The well known image has emotions connected with it. I contributed my own version of the meme with the addition of the text above it, giving a new situation to a familiar image.

    I used logos through citing a real life experience and a quotation. The example I used was teachers saying it’s not professional or proper. Whether it is paraphrased or similar wording, it is an example of an authority figure stating the act of speaking in a dialect, accent, or another language is wrong. There were other possible routes I could have used such as a higher up at an office job or a parent at home but I chose to use a teacher. In academic settings, the education of a child is shaped. What a teacher rewards with positive feedback and what they denoted as negative significantly changes the way students think. It would impact my intended audience more because they are school age or recently graduated. The selection of language works well because I used abbreviations common to my target audience. For example “bc”. It is common for memes and the audience to communicate in this way so by mimicking texting slang, it appeals to said audience.