Friday, May 2, 2008

Free Choice: Air Jordan Artwork

For my free choice portion I chose an artwork I did in art class. This artwork consists of Michael Jordan who was my favorite idol and basketball player I looked up to when I was young. Mainly when he was in the league but now he’s retired. On this artwork it has the Jordan symbol/logo. The symbol to me represents Jordan’s Accomplishing his goals. That’s how high he’s reached since becoming a pro basketball player and a successful entrepreneur. Jordan could be a role model for anybody if they knew behind his existence. Pretty much that’s every African American boy’s dream, to be in the NBA one day. Because before the new century( the 1990’s) that’s all we boys knew and had to learn how to play, but as more opportunities arose many of us just started taking these opportunities and make something of ourselves.” Sports are there to entertain you, you can’t make something out of yourself playing sports for the rest of your life, you need to have a back -up plan”, quoted by my African American Studies Teacher.The significance of this as I said was the logo which showed Jordan in the air as he attempts to slam dunk, also shows how high he soared to get where he’s at now. The logo is on almost all of his sneakers, shirts, basketball shorts and more. Many people can learn a thing or too from this significant logo. Everything in the background or it’s surroundings are not really included in his products. I thought I could make it with more surroundings because it wouldn’t look as perfect just putting the symbol on a big poster without the name and a couple other accessories. Jordan is worth a lot just as well as my artwork. Jordan combined with Nike about 2 months ago and made a killing off their debut sneakers the first week of sales. The artwork is worth a lot to me because every time I look at it I think of it’s significance especially when I slack off in school. And if anyone has the same spirit as me they would know how much it’s worth, knowing now Michael Jordan is one of the wealthiest African Americans in the U.S.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Persuasive Analysis: The African American Youth and Alcohol Advertisement

This African American youth and alcohol advertisement recalls years back later about African American youth use of alcohol which is the drug most widely used by them. African Americans age 12-20 are most likely to drink because percentages of them saw advertising of alcohol in magazine articles of beer, for distilled spirits, and malt liquor. In the year 2004, African American youths saw more alcohol advertising in national magazines than youths in general. Over 200 ads of alcohol in magazines were seen by a majority percentage of African American youths. Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on the radio per capita than youth in general. Since then 39% of African American teens ages 12-17 are among the most frequent viewers of cable TV. Rap music videos were analyzed for a study published in 1997, they contained the highest percentage of depictions of alcohol use of any music genre appearing on MTV, BET, CMT, VH-1.
Analyzing this advertisement this component uses the fallacy damning The Source because it attempts or does refute the argument by indicating the source of the argument. This article basically offends these music genre channels because it states “Rap music videos were analyzed for a study published in 1997 contained the highest percentage of depictions of alcohol use of any music genre appearing on MTV, BET, CMT, VH-1.” The advertisement made these channels look bad because concerned parents were reading and that basically took effect as the viewer ratings decreased.The advertisement also uses Appeal To Authority” because since African American youths 12-20 were watching BET, their commercials were using alcoholic advertising as well as rap videos which encouraged these kids to drink. In the 2004 National survey on drug use and health, 19% African Americans between the age of 12-20 used alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey compared to the 32.6% whites, and 9.9% of African American youths reported “Binge” drinking.