It’s been awhile since I’ve felt hopeful for the future of our city -- except it’s more of a “fingers crossed” kind of hopeful feeling that’s like banking on the birthday present your mother got you as the dream gift.
The Chicago Machine is dead, or well, nearing it. Our lovely Chicago-made politicians tied to the infamous system are meeting its end, thanks to outsiders getting invested in our city. I like to think of it as a really, really, stubborn weed that we’ve finally managed to pull out of the ground from our rotten garden -- then proceeded to plant a new, smaller one, in its place.
See, the Chicago Machine has died in its most bare sense. The Chicago Machine politicians are being rooted out of the system, such as the likes of legendary “Burger King Burke” (digging the nickname?) -- having been crushed by born and raised from Ohio, Mayor Lightfoot -- the shiny new part for the Chicago Machine.
The practice of the Machine lives on through our wondrous city -- with fun Chicago facts like our police budget dominating the city’s spending priority despite our murder rate being higher than it has ever been since 1996 as of 2021. The shiny new Machine needs some time to let the replacement parts settle in, which is exactly what the youth of Chicago are making sure doesn’t happen.
With young figures like Ugo Okere and a whole young caucus of Chicago socialists, our political influence is growing quicker than the machine is really picking up on -- which I’m just savoring. I’m hopeful about the particular interest that these types of politicians have shown in our public education system here in Chicago. Having my mother working in the school industry has rooted a deeper passion for the quality of education students of Chicago receive from the city. I believe that a lot of kiddos my age aren’t exactly too keen on how so many things we could have to improve our experience are so limited to whatever lovely budget mayor Lightfoot and governor Pritzker spew out onto us ever so generously.
Despite research telling us that our schools are underfunded and kids aren’t getting the resources they need
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| (Photo by Scott Olson, 2019) |
, we still insist on betting our money on the boys in blue hoping for… I don’t know, crime rates just drop by handing out speeding tickets like candy? Lightfoot represents downtown, but definitely not Chicago -- which is problematic when we want to advocate for something better than the occasional spoiled and chunky chocolate milk and out-of-our-teacher’s-pocket field trips.
Truth is, the youth is annoyed with the efforts made by folks in office and I believe we know it's time the younger generations are in need of taking the wheel. If you've ever seen a teen really invested in politics, really out there in protests, really ready to hold up that fist and shout for a better future, then you've seen what the future council is gonna look like. Kids with passion on the
subject are investing more time to make sure that their change is noticed in these troubling times. I'm sick of having to even think of the struggles we put our teachers through just to have a functioning classroom.
Having spent my freshman year in Curie, they made sure to work with what they had even when it wasn't enough. I still admire that effort and strive in my current days of high school, even when the public system hadn't treated me well. I could see past that, I could see that there were people in those same schools trying to make sure us kids had something to look forward to even when we thought we didn't. Shout out to you Manjarrez for making math fun even when it was straight from the textbook.
Teachers are out there putting love into a system that doesn't love them back.
It's time we change that Chicago.
Rhetorical Analysis TIME
Short but punchy is what I strive for, it definitely helps when you've actually got the heart in the subject you're fighting for. It also helps when you've got a whole class dedicated to rhetoric, so let's get into that. Firstly, we'll go over the three main devices of rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Ethos is establishing credibility on yourself as a speaker for the subject you're talking about. I made sure to address myself as a high school student who's gone through and seen exactly how schools are struggling to work with the budget enforced by our machine. I'm also the son of an amazing school teacher who pours her heart and soul into her teaching. This makes sure that the audience knows I literally have hands on experience with what I'm talking about. You'd trust a medicinal doctor to prescribe you medicine, and you hopefully would trust a high school student that has gone through public school to talk about public school.
Pathos is all about emotion and making sure that you can toy with the audience's feelings in a way that's beneficial to your motive. In this case I made sure to mention the oppressive nature of the Machine on our own people, making sure to emphasize on my writing style as well to guarantee the words I want to draw attention do. When you take on the voice of the people, they feel a little more inclined to feel the same way you do. My most raw and on-the-head use of pathos would definitely be the 8th paragraph, I go all in for a heartful approach on the school systems we have now and resonate very much with the struggles of schooling.
Logos likes to pull up all the sources in any argument. It's there to make sure we know that we're not dealing with just fancy words made to play with our feelings but actual statistics and information to solidify our argument a little more. My entire OP-ED is littered with relevant sources that are put there to tell you that I'm not just spewing funny numbers out for no reason. I've done my research, my homework, and I'm letting you know that it's for sure real.
Now getting into more complex and deeper roots of rhetoric, we look at some other smaller yet significant devices that drive my point home. I'm a big fan of metaphors, analogies, and definitely repetition when it comes to writing rhetorically. It's fun, easy, and especially effective.
In the very first paragraph, I actually use an analogy to introduce the style of my writing at its most comical take. The sentence "it’s more of a “fingers crossed” kind of hopeful feeling that’s like banking on the birthday present your mother got you as the dream gift." is supposed to convey how I'm approaching my feelings on the subject, describing it in a more literal sense that I feel good about the future, but I know it's not a guarantee that things will turn out right, it's a hope that it does.
Even when describing the machine, I make sure to use analogies to get my idea across of how the machine isn't really dead, but simply being run differently by stating that the new heads of Chicago are simply "brand new parts." I made sure to strive on this idea of the machine in a more literal sense for the fun of it.
I use repetition in the 7th paragraph when describing a teenager who knows what they're shooting for.
"If you've ever seen a teen really invested in politics, really out there in protests, really ready to hold up that fist and shout for a better future, then you've seen what the future council is gonna look like."
There is a constant use of the word "really" in order to show that kids are passionate about what they're fighting for out there, and they do more than what meets the eye. It's a fun tool that I myself use a lot due to the sheer "punchiness" of the tool.
CONCLUSION
I bet you had fun reading that. When it comes to this style of writing I feel like I'm in my zone. It's natural to me to push my personality into my writing, so when I'm given the opportunity to do exactly that I get to simply be myself in writing. Given that this wasn't without struggle, like I mentioned before I am new to taking approaches on politics in such a deep-dive matter. Finding potential politicians and sources was a struggle, along with finding where to even start on the topic in the first place. There's a weird sense of wanting to create perfection when talking about politics, because you'll never be right to everybody. Everyone's a critic in politics, and you simply can't do anything about it. You just have to stay true to what feels right to you. But that doesn't mean to shut off your brain when somebody's bringing their cards to the table either. No matter what I do, if I'm talking politics I'll always feel exposed in an argument even when I have a "moral high ground" on the subject. Thanks for reading.
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