Reggie and Addison's House Party: A Conversation on Racism - Free Paper

The speech is about a conversation between Reggie, a University student, and his friend Addison, who organized a house party. At the party, several other friends to Addison were invited, including Troy, Coco, Sam, and Gabe. Besides, there were alcoholic beverages, that Reggie also appears to take. Eventually, chaos emerged, after one-on-one altercations, where Reggie was against the act of saying the n-word for his reasons. Others mistook him as racist, but in the middle of his attempts to explain why he did not want the word pronounced, the whole house goes to a halt, a fact that attracts two police officers, Cole and Ames, to cool down the tension. At the moment, Addison is only asked a simple question, but more concern is drawn to Reggie, as he is pushed to the wall to show his student identification (Simien, 2014). He is even threatened with a gunpoint, but he adheres and finally shows up his student ID. All the eight components of S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G are taken into consideration. These are setting, participants, ends, action, sequences, key, instrumentalities, norms, and genre. Ideally, the film is further aimed at exposing the acts of the whites on blacks, on daily occasions. In this discussion, I will coherently demonstrate how the conversation in question relates to the various aspects of S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G, and the importance of the vital shreds of information, that is conveyed in the speech.

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The setting of this speech is in a student’s room, in the morning hours. At the start of the conversation, the party is organized after the meeting for breakfast, indicating that the speech must have taken place in the mid-morning hours. The main occasion that carries the fundamental background of the speech is a house party, where friends invite one another for refreshments, as it is always with campus students. Although several people can be seen in the scene, key participants remain to be Addison, who organized the patty, Reggie, and the two police officers who formed the larger part of the conversation, and that contributed to the name of the film “Dear White People.” Nevertheless, other students are also involved in the house party. While others attempted to relax the tension between the two after the arouse of the house altercations, some hiked the tempo, and that primarily attracted the attention of campus police officers to come in and intervene.

The ends of the speech are characterized by various events and aims by distinguished participants. The goal of Addison, Reggie, and their friends is to enjoy the party by enjoying alcoholic beverages. However, a section of the friends seems to facilitate the tension, by introducing off-set questions, which they are assured Reggie would either dislike or fail to participate in, due to his race. The two controversial incidents promote a major outbreak of disagreement between Reggie and Addison because they completely fail to understand one another, on why the n-word should be said or not. The acts during the social occasion also follow one after another, in extremely chronological order. As Addison is requested to say the word, Reggie refuses the act. Besides, the two police officers request Reggie to show his student identification, but he refuses, as he explains that he is not of kin. Upon shooting threats, he is eventually overwhelmed and promises the officer that he will release the ID. The refusal is because he believes asking him for his ID, is a racial act. Furthermore, his friend, whom they had fought with, is not asked for the ID. The sequence of issues in the case is an exemplary manifestation that racism is an ordinary act that is not only fought in states but also by federal organizations such as schools (Harris et al., 2020). Moreover, its consistency of Reggie to refuse any acts that can propagate racism shows how individuals are struggling in the USA to make things in place when those in power, or rather the majority, are continuously misusing their powers.

In the speech, the key is expressed by a joyful mood at the beginning, which later turns into annoyance and sadness. For instance, Reggie is seen dancing and yelling in a happy mood with a bottle of an alcoholic drink at hand. In the middle of the occasion, Reggie gets annoyed and engages in a cold fight with his friend. In the end, Reggie returns to his dorm room, where he weeps down tears of sadness and betrayal.

The instrument for the speech was a spoken, face-to-face interaction between where videos were recorded and uploaded into the media streams. The conversation was, however, informal between the friends, and everyone was free to speak at any time. Finally, different norms were prevalent in the speech. For instance, the first norm is "I am not of kin." Meanwhile, there is a misunderstanding among the police officers who believe that a black can only be allowed in the USA with purpose. One police reiterated "Show your ID." This shows the ideal belief of whites that blacks are not allowed to engage in problems. Pointing a gun at Reggie also shows the norm of disrespect to blacks (Leen, 2018). As mentioned above, the category of the speech was a conversation, where both parties contributed freely without restrictions, as happens with the casual form of speech.

Conclusion

In summary, the scene of the occasion occurs in a student's room, where various students attend a house party ceremony. The study of language in this discussion with guidelines for sociolinguistics led to various social factors such as culture, and racism (Van Herk, 2017). Many drinks are available, but the happy mood immediately turns into altercations and disagreements. The conversational tone was lower in the beginning, hiked in the middle, and eventually fell with Reggie going back to the room to relax, as he weeps uncontrollably. The various norms observed prove how minority racial groups are struggling for a niche in white-dominated institutions such as schools. The speech "Dear White People" is a perfect reflection of racism. This is evidenced by the scenario where a police officer ignores Addison, who was fighting Reggie but turned the focus to Reggie. Freedom of speech is missing when he is quickly requested for his ID, instead of getting his explanation for what triggered the fight.

References

Harris, T. M., Deeb, A. M. D. & Wade, A. (2020). Dear White People. Racialized Media: The Design, Delivery, and Decoding of Race and Ethnicity, 283. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6ga5DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA283&dq=dear+white+people+film&ots=9XnIokhHKy&sig=hsMQVV_1J09MbFCBTm8Fpj8GUeg

Leen, C. (2018). Dear White People, (2014). The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films, 140.

Simien, J. (2014). Dear white people. Simon and Schuster. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=75uMBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=dear+white+people&ots=h7vZwGjtCK&sig=ZvydigD9qDn6ohhJSmOlodZzcsI

Van Herk, G. (2017). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd edition). https://content.ashford.edu