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A person can be the subject of a Compound Rhetorical Situation - think about the various public conversations happening about that individual at any given point in time.

Let's brainstorm likely DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES/RHETOR GROUPS and GENRES that are part of a CRS around Colin Kaepernick (the activist athlete).

Try to avoid overly broad categories/communities. Instead, think about how to break those groups down into more defined DC an GENRES.

Each student should add one post to this Padlet and discuss either a DISCOURSE COMMUNITY or a GENRE that participates in the Kaepernick CRS.  Provide a brief explanation of why that DC or GENRE might be involved and a concrete example of a text that represents your choice.

Make sure to put your name on your post.

DO NOT REPEAT ANY DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES OR GENRES THAT ARE ALREADY POSTED.

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This movement by Kaepernick evolved from incidents that took place between the police and an unarmed black man. In later games Kaepernick began taking a knee was a symbol of oppression and police brutality.  Some may view taking a knee as a symbol of respect for something you believe in. For example, in many religious ceremonies taking a knee (genuflect) as a sign of deep respect to the scripture of to God. For those serving in the military kneeling shows disrespect to active and former service members who protect our rights as Americans. The symbolism of taking a knee represents the freedom of speech for some and disrespect to others.
The symbolism of this act by Kaepernick is a part of a CRS of Amercians and their interpretations.

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Discourse Community: Racial Rights - Grace Maglalang

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Discourse Community: Racial Rights - Grace Maglalang

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Colin Kaepernick made the decision to kneel/not stand while the national anthem played before a game. In one perspective, it was taken as an offense to America as whole, but in Kaepernick's defense, it represented a movement against racial injustice. This all occurred during the time of police brutality with an African American, in which Kaepernick believed he should stand up for. His actions started a national controversy, which brings up my choice of discourse community being those that stand up for racial rights. He was not the only one to show his side of the controversy. Forbe's article, "The Colin Kaepernick Story Appears To Be Over," discusses how either people became against him or along side with him and his bold decision. This discourse community involves those standing for racial rights and how Kaepernick became included in that movement.

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Colin Kaepernick’s situation involves many genres. One of them include social media, specifically Twitter. Most people use Twitter to communicate their interests and connect with others. When the news broke out about Kaepernick kneeling at the pre-season game, people quickly responded on Twitter about his actions and shared their personal opinions. Twitter quickly became the virtual venue for people lashing out in objection or passionately supporting his reason for his controversial action. Kaepernick also used Twitter to personally thank the two NFL players from the Miami Dolphins who continued his movement on the field. In his tweet, Kaepernick wrote "My Brothers @kstills and @ithinkisee12 continue to show their unwavering strength by fighting for the oppressed! They have not backed down, even when attacked and intimidated. Their courage will move the world forward! (@Kaepernick7)". Lastly, Kaepernick used Twitter to announce his collaboration with Nike. People had the same response and went on the platform to express their thoughts and feelings. From this, people can see the different ways Twitter is involved in Kaepernick's compound rhetorical situation.

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Discourse Community - racial injustices (the opposite side of the other post) - Samuel Curry

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Discourse Community - racial injustices (the opposite side of the other post) - Samuel Curry

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Yes, I know someone already covered one side of the racial injustices, but there is another discourse community that is important here! When Colin kneeled, a discourse community grew that was against his actions. This community took to twitter, took to their journals (journalist), and decided to protest again his decision. ESPN's article by Mike Triplett called "Drew Brees 'Whole Heartedly' Disagrees with Colin Kaepernick's Method of Protest" covers this discourse community. Breeds says in the article, Not that he wants to speak out about a very important issue. No, he can speak out about a very important issue. But there's plenty of other ways that you can do that in a peaceful manner that doesn't involve being disrespectful to the American flag." And this just shows that. That there was a community that came out against him, and went to twitter, interviewers, etc to get their point across. There are often two discourse communities created from one controversy.

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Discourse Community- the ones that kneel too
Kayla Coleman

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Discourse Community- the ones that kneel too
Kayla Coleman

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The movement that Collin Kaepernick sparked, has provoked other NFL football players to kneel during the National Anthem as well. This discourse community has grown, and now you see on national television more and more NFL players kneeling. Most of the players that are kneeling are African Americans. These players are kneeling for racial injustices that many minorities feel in our country. Indianapolis Colts player, Darius Butler said in 2017 "There are a lot of great things about this country, this is a great country, but there are some things that need to be changed.” This discourse community is important because it shows support for Kaepernick and wanting change for the racism many citizens receive.

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Discourse Community- Colin Kaepernick's Nike Ad Campaign 

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Discourse Community- Colin Kaepernick's Nike Ad Campaign 

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Claire Voegele

In September 2018, Nike released a 'Just Do it' ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick as the narrator. This ad came out after Colin's movement of refusing to stand during the national anthem in 2016. Through this campaign, Nike sought to reach fans that were sympathetic to Colin's situation and supported his movement. The ad never mentions "taking a knee" or anything overtly political, but instead focus on the theme of affirming crazy dreams. Colin narrates, "If people say your dreams are crazy, if they laugh at what you think you can do — good, stay that way, because what nonbelievers fail to understand is that calling a dream crazy is not an insult, it's a compliment." With Colin's movement, it is clear that he started it with positive changes for the community in mind. This ad opens up a new discourse about Kaepernick, seeking to paint him in as a dreamer who is fighting for the best quality of life for Americans. Presenting Colin in this light and using an ad campaign opens up a new discourse community. This discourse community includes consumers of Nike products, share holders of the company, and those working for Nike.

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When Kaepernick decided to take a knee for the first time, it was IN RESPONSE to police brutality on African Americans (a reoccurring situation). Kaepernick saw the issue in our country and saw it happening over and over. He realized that something needed to be done in order to make others more aware and to make them realize how big the issue is. His response was to take a knee, in order to gain awareness. Even though he lost his career by doing this, he did it for a good cause that he believed was worth fighting for. This action inspired others across the country to kneel during the National Anthem as well. Kaepernick's single response sparked a movement across the country for equality.

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I will be honest, coming up with a different community than the ones already said is difficult. I do think to an extent there are only so many communities that are created. Genre's however can be more numerous and if explained well could be anything. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee he raised up lots of controversy. With all the discourse communities comes a wave of gossip. The news starts throwing out stories and other players start kneeling too. The world starts talking. Wether what people say is true or false, they just continue to speak about what is going on. What Colin did was very profound and everyone needed to talk about it. This genre created a way for even the most common people to keep the controversy going.

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While racial rights as a discourse communities was already covered, I think that there is a genre of American rights within this RS. In the video of genre we watched, genre was defined as, "a typified response to a recurring situation." For this scenario the recurring situation is police brutality toward African Americans. In return, the typified response chosen by Colin Kaepernick was to kneel during the national anthem in protest of the recurrent situation. This creates a new genre because it is a different response from the usual, which would be standing. This new genre exercises the practice of our rights as American's to take a stand, or kneel, for our beliefs. Kaepernick taking a kneel for his beliefs of the injustices that the African American community faces from police is an example of how Americans can use their freedom, or rights, to create a change or a new genre.

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Ally Klaserner

When Colin Kaepernick kneeled, the largest discourse community that he was directing his message to was law enforcement. His kneeling protested police brutality of African Americans and unintentionally grouped all law enforcement employees into a category ‘evil’, especially from the view of those belonging to African American communities.

In one instance Kaepernick wore socks with pigs on them. Generally, festive socks are fun but the pigs weren’t just barnyard animals, they were wearing police officer uniform. Pigs are viewed as filthy so a pig wearing a police officer uniform may be associating officers as corrupt or unjust and ultimately unfit for their duties. By doing this Colin Kaepernick offended the ‘moral’ police officers who uphold their oaths to protect and serve communities to the best of their abilities. Wearing these socks thereby caused a distaste for Kaepernick within the Fraternal Order of Police which can be seen from the statement released by their President Chuck Canterbury. He “said the 381 police officers killed in the line of duty since 2016 “believed in something and sacrificed everything” ”. This discourse community disagrees with Colin Kaepernick’s view that police officers are unmoral and would partially blame him for the uptick in random violent acts against police officers that have resulted in death.

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The genre of merchandise is present in the Colin Kaepernick controversy of him kneeling during the National Anthem. Most people are either on his side or against his side, with some exceptions of people being in the middle and being indifferent towards this. One of the ways people can show their stance on this issue is with Colin Kaepernick merchandise. Something that a lot of college students do is put stickers on their computers. On campus, I have seen people with Colin Kaepernick stickers. This is the same idea with Colin Kaepernick jerseys or shirts. When one has Colin Kaepernick merchandise, it can be assumed that they agree with Colin Kaepernick. People will now only wear his merchandise if they agree with him kneeling during the national anthem. Merchandise is an expression and a way to proclaim if one agrees with Colin Kaepernick. I suppose there could also be anti-Colin Kaepernick merchandise. Merchandise, in this case, is a response to a situation, making it a genre.

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Discourse Community - Advertisements seeking social change
Alison Dooley

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Discourse Community - Advertisements seeking social change
Alison Dooley

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In response to both Kiersten's "Merchandise as a genre" and Claire's "Nike Ad - Discourse Community" I think there is an overarching discourse community tying these two ideas together, companies utilizing their brand's power and social influence to contribute to the conversations on current social and political issues. When Colin Kaepernick began his political activism and after continuing his partnership with Nike in the "Just Do It" Ad campaign he became a member of this community Nike was already a part of. One piece of evidence is the Kaepernick's Nike ad itself, but in order to understand how the ad is functioning in this community we can look at other ads from Nike and other brands as well. A couple of examples include the Nike Ad "What are Girls Made of?", the Nike Ad "If You Let Me Play", Jeep's "If There Is No Planet, Where Will You Drive", or Airbnb's "We Accept" ad.

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Genre and the Colin Kaepernick Ad- Rebecca Lanning

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Genre and the Colin Kaepernick Ad- Rebecca Lanning

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Nike Ads have already been examined as a discourse community, but perhaps they should also be viewed under the lens of genre. As Claire Voegele pointed out in her post, Nike uses their “Just Do It” campaign as a platform for discussion and change. Alison Dooley also wrote about this on the larger scale of companies using their ads to create and participate in discourse communities. What both of these posts touch on, but ultimately pass over, is how ads like Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad is becoming its own genre. Genre, based on the video by The Word Bird, is defined as a “Typified response to a recurring situation.” The situation here? Social activism, in particular Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem to bring attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. This seems obvious, but perhaps the second part, the “Typified response” part of the definition seems out of place. And perhaps it would be a few years ago, but as companies have more and more direct interactions with public spaces through Twitter and other social media platforms, these bold ads are becoming more common place, for better or for worse. Nike is not the first to try and capitalize off of a controversial event. There was the infamous Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad, which featured the celebrity bringing peace to riots using Pepsi. Though lampooned by the public and even parodied on SNL, this ad was still a response to current events at the time, specifically social activism. And then there was the Gillette razors ad which attempted to join in Women’s Rights Activism with their “We believe: The Best Men Can Be”. So, Nike’s ad is not unique among ads of its kind, it is part of a genre of ads which respond to current events and seek to join in social activism.

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While Twitter was brought up as a genre, I would argue that it also functions as a discourse community. Social media platforms such as Twitter serve as vastly unique media platforms as compared to those common before the internet/digital age because of the sheer publicity of content. The culture of sharing content and opinions has changed vastly with the rise of Twitter and its cohorts (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) in the sense that discourse communities within the platform blend and interact so often and so seamlessly that the platform itself becomes a meta-community. It is also much more common to participate in discourse communities that are not directly "relevant" to oneself or that one is previously well-educated on through platforms like Twitter than ever before, which also contributes to the site acting as one discourse community. For instance, with regard to the Kaepernick ad, I, as someone who is not a football fan or a Nike customer, and as someone who cares deeply about racial issues but does typically follow racial justice based content nor is affected by racial prejudice, am often exposed to the discourse surrounding the Kaepernick scenario. While I have not sought to be apart of this discourse community nor has it been forced upon me, simply by being on Twitter I experience the discourse and have unwittingly formed opinions and joined the discourse myself. Consider now the thousands, if not millions of people, who through similar circumstances have been assimilated into the social media fueled discourse community and contribute their opinions and content, perhaps without any other experience or information received that is relevant to the discourse community or the intended audience of a rhetorical statement. While one may say this is the main fault of social media as a news and information platform, I would argue that it itself is merely a symptom of our society not yet having adapted to such broad, opinionated meta-communities of public discourse.

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For this past Super Bowl it was rumored that booking a half time show act proved to be difficult for the NFl. After Kaepernick began to take a knee during the National Anthem, it struck a similar cord with many others who agree with his stance on the matter of racial injustice. This controvery spread far beyond Kaepernick himself. For example, singers reportedly turned down the chance of a lifetime (performing at the Super Bowl half time show) in order to show their support towards the movement Kaepernick began. Specifically, " singer Rihanna reportedly turned down the gig out of solidarity to ex-NFL quarterback Colin kaepernick, who became a lightning rod of controversy over his decision to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality" (Atlanta Business Chronicles). Maroon 5 attempted to reach out to other artists to have them as featured guests during the performance, but many of them said no. Musicians in this case could be a discourse community because they are people who are not usually affiliated with the NFL, but see and share similar views with people such as Kaepernick when it comes to issues such as racial injustice,

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Colin's action of kneeling during the national anthem, brought about two obvious discourse communities. The two taking the stance of either full support for the cause Colin was kneeling for or in disagreement of Colin's action due to the "disrespect" towards our nation. I believe that there is also another, less obvious community. The community that chose not to pick a side. This community has various reasons for not picking a side. Despite there being more than one reason to be apart of this community, the stance that would like to focus on is specific. This stance being, the fact that some people chose not to belong to a side because they understand that all that does is further the divide even more. This group of people has already moved on from the hate that the other two sides still decide to live in. This group of people have moved on and are already living in harmony with one another. This group of people reminds of the quote by Morgan Freeman. Mr. Freeman said, when asked the question "how are we going to get rid of racism?", "stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. You know me as Morgan Freeman and I know you as Mike Wallace."

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The Genre of  Division in the US _ Skyler Fontaine

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The Genre of  Division in the US _ Skyler Fontaine

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When it comes to political issues, the United States is notorious for a division of views. The most recent election created some of the most division in the country as people began to veer either further to the left or further to the right of political issues at hand. Most debates after the presidential election led to the same conclusion of division among the U.S. One debate in particular created a massive reaction from Americans as Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem before several games. Kaepernick explained that he chose not to stand in support of " a country that oppresses black people and people of color...There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder" (Psychology Today 2016). Some fans were so outraged that they were quick to burn jerseys with his name and turned to social media platforms to express their extreme displeasure of Kaepernick's actions. Others were empowered by Kapernick's choice to sit and/or kneel during the national anthem as he is utilizing his platform of communication to the world that the injustices done to the African American population are no longer going to be tolerated. In Psychology Today, author Sam Louie makes the connection that a typical white American's response to these events was, "If you don't like America, go somewhere else. Leave. We'll help you pack," and the typical African American's response was, "[Kaepernick] is speaking for the oppressed everywhere. Good for him. Stay strong" (Psychology Today, 2016). While the truth of the matter isn't as black and white as it seems (excuse the pun), these responses were reliable in assessing the reactions of African Americans and White populations. While Kaepernick meant for justice for those of color, he may have created a further divide in how he went about spreading his message.

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I would say that a discourse community that many people  don't consider with the popular Kaepernick debate is the veteran/military population. I had Twitter around the time of his iconic stand and other non-military users were making arguments against him from the point of veterans. This prompted veterans to start voicing their opinions. The majority opinion of this population was that veterans felt they were being used as pawns in both sides of the debate trying to be "right". Some veterans pointed out that they fought for the freedom of speech and as long as he wasn't hurting anyone, they did not care what his opinion was. Other veterans said that they laid down their lives in the name of the flag, the anthem, etc. and he was therefore taking their sacrifice for granted. It is interesting to note this community because they definitely made their voice and opinions more prominent as the result of this debate.

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Kapernick took his knee in response to place brutality in American. Police brutality is primarily focused on African American men in the country and Kaepernick believed that taking a stance in his position of the NFL and Nike he will be able to get a message across of awareness. He set a symbol of recognition for the victims we have lost due to police brutality and the police officers tried to injustice. Because of the importance of his career and the NFL's and Nike's company, he lost his job. He sacrificed his career for the justice of victims of police brutality.

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Inequality in Genre - Carlos Herriott II

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Inequality in Genre - Carlos Herriott II

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Often times in the case of Colin Kaepernick’s the real problem has been overlooked. Kaepernick took a stance for something he saw was not being addressed in America. Police inequality has been a problem plaguing our country for years and when someone as big as Kaepernick took a stance it was seen as unpatriotic. A quote that you often here with activist is that you have to “stand for something” and Colin Kaepernick stood for what he believed in, but in turn lost everything. His one knee inspired a movement of both athletes and everyday Americans to kneel during the National Anthem. Inequality is just a small part of what Colin Kaepernick is fighting for everyday, but a very large part of what he stands for nation wide.