Week 6 - Visual Arguments Reading Response

Making a Visual Argument: Cartoonists Take On Affirmative Action on page 934 has five cartoon visual arguments.
The first visual argument was drawn by Mike Lester, “It’s Got to Be the Shoes. This picture has a Supreme Court justice clown holding out his hand at the height requirement. Reaching the required height is a boy who is wearing tall platform shoes. This picture looks like its mocking the affirmative action decision and is making fun of the judges who made the ruling. A girl standing behind the boy, with the tall shoes, is recognizing that “it must be the shoes.” If only we were all the right height.

Second picture was drawn by Dennis Draughon, called “Supreme Irony.” This picture is short, sweet and to the point, because all the Supreme Court Justices are sitting in their designated spots considering the fate of affirmative action, which would promote racial diversity, the funny thing is that all the justices are white, but one. This argument is effective in getting the point across to its reader.

The third picture and the most cluttered of the visual arguments. It was drawn by Mike Thompson. It’s called “Daniel Lives on Detroit’s Eastside.” It looks to me like Daniel has a hard life, but thanks to affirmative action, he’s able to get into college. Then, typically, there’s a jerky white person annoyed and jealous. She isn’t appreciating what Daniel has been through in his life.

The last two arguments are both effective in getting their point across and I believe it’s good that we have free speech in America, where we are able to laugh at controversial political decisions.