The People We Always Forget

For the third unit of Rhetoric, we learned how the use of language and ideas can unite people. Although this was an extremely short unit, we briefly analyzed different historical periods that follow this main idea. For this Action Project, we had to make an artistic piece that represents something that we feel strongly about. My partner and I decided to make a voice over of the CTA train announcer to make people realize both who is actually on the train, and how the city changes around them. It’s called ‘The Voices Of The Lost”. I produced the audio clip and my partner (AL) did most of the writing.

         

"The Voices Of The Lost", (2016) LS. 

Our main rhetorical appeal in this piece is pathos. Throughout the audio clip, the main focus was getting people to feel like they were on a train and then make them reflect upon the questions being asked. While not as obvious as pathos, ethos plays a large part in the piece as well. If some random person were to come up to people on the train an repeat what the piece is saying, it would not have the same effect. The fact that it comes from the intercom, a place they've always gotten factual information from, makes a larger impact.

When hearing this recording we want the listener to think about all the different people that struggle through life around the city. In the making of this piece, we are trying to unite those that are separated by race. If you look at any demographic map of the city, it is obvious that there is a strong divide between where the majority of the racial groups live in Chicago. Many of these segregated people may even feel that they live in a completely different city as those that have higher incomes. In most cases, people that live up north aren't even aware that segregation still happens in their city at such a high frequency. This is why that instead of attacking the people that simply are unaware, we aim to make them question themselves and not feel attacked. When I first recorded the speaking part, I thought it was too short. However, after recording more, I realized it just turned into what sounded like an infomercial. This is what prompted the shorter and more question filled version.

While this was made primarily with the idea of race in mind, it can also been interpreted as people ignoring the presence of homelessness on the CTA. Often, we don’t care to think that there are homeless people that live on these trains. When we do see them, we complain behind the safety of our computer screens about them sleeping on the seats of the train. One well known homeless person is Freddie the homeless man ("Forgotten"). He sleeps on the Redline all day until the beds at a shelter open up at night. There are 2,055 people that live on the street or public transportation and parks in 2015 (Rianne). 

While not necessarily inciting action, our hope is that after listening to our piece, people reflect upon their own thoughts and actions. We want people to want to get involved on their own accord, not because they got ideas shoved into their head.


Citations:

Coale, Rianne. "As Homeless Numbers Rise in Chicago, CTA Is a Place of Refuge | Transit Diaries." Redeyechicago.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.

"The Forgotten Passengers." A Red Line Project Special Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.