Rhetorical analysis of two articles about Justice Sacco’s tweet that cause outraged and traffic
Introduction
Sometimes human being’s mind is biased and prejudiced to the extent that it makes things fit their beliefs, desires, understanding or context even if it is not what the statement, comment, words or post intends. Justice Sacco was traveling to South Africa to visit her family when she made a joke in her tweet. She states that “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m White!” (Sam 1). Her tweet was shared by one person known as Sam Biddle and led to vast outrage that caused traffic online. Sam Biddle, could not believe how fast the Justice Sacco’s tweet spread through social media under a hashtag’ HasJusticeLandedYet.’
Two articles address Justice Sacco’s twitter and the outrage it caused in social media. The first article, ‘Justine Sacco Is Good at Her Job, and How I Came to Peace with Her’ is by Sam Biddle. In his article, Sam Biddle explains how he shared Justice Sacco’s tweet and later made peace with her after her tweet had gone viral in the social media (Sam 2). The second article, ‘How to tweet about Africa: the lessons of Justine Sacco, race and sarcasm’ by Siri Srinivas. Siri defends Justice Sacco’s post using a Kenyan writer called Binyavanga Wainaina, who uses almost similar words in his book ‘How to Write about Africa’ as its support (Siri 1).
Sam Biddle presents that Justice Sacco had tweeted without a bad intention (Sam 1). She did not know that her tweet was going round in social media. Sam Biddle says that it is easy to tell if someone had posted something with an evil intention. They are often guilty and emotionally drained; however, this was not the case with Justice Sacco. Sam asserts that Justice Sacco did appear well and emotionally perfect. She did not even hate him for reposting her post that caused the outrage in social media and ruined her career and life. According to Sam Biddle, someone who had the intention of a racist would not behave or feel as Justice Sacco did. He had been sacked, and her life was a mess. Everyone expected that she would be angry and emotionally shaken. Sam Biddle also posted ‘Bring Back Bullying,’ which most people translated according to their understanding and believed that he was advocating for bullying while he meant something different (Sam 3). He is targeting the social media users and the general public with his argument, particularly those who do not want to take their time to analyze the posts and often understand them in their ways and puts the owner of the post liable for their misunderstandings.
On the other hand, Siri Srinivas takes a different path to give his opinion regarding the outrage that occurred following the innocent post by Justice Sacco. Siri Srinivas shows that people understand posts from their point of view and context, which is often different from the owner’s and will want the owner to be answerable for their misinterpretation and misunderstandings of the post (Siri 1). According to him, the internet society took Justice Sacco’s post too personal. Siri shows that nobody is immune to AIDS, including the white, and no one would immediately associate Africa with AIDS. Her tweet was sarcasm that people misunderstood. Siri presents an essay written by a Kenyan, Wainaina Binyavanga entitled ‘How to Write about Africa,’ which comprises some similarly offensive statements but did not attract the same outrage as Justice Sacco’s. In his essay, Wainaina goes ahead to mention AIDS and stated that AIDS depopulates Africa. Siri then asks why this did not create a similar outrage, and most people regard it as normal (Siri 1). He concludes that Justice Sacco’s post was a slight sarcasm and small joke that did not mean to be racial or offend Africans. He speaks to the whole world, striving to let them understand the irony and how most people misinterpreted Justice Sacco’s post.
Sam Biddle presents his argument in the most persuasive manner, which makes the audience understand that Justice Sacco’s post was a mere joke and sarcasm that did not aim to attack any race, nation, or people.
First strategy: Sam Biddle creates a real image of two people who were directly involved in the act that led to the outrage, discuss what happened, their opinions, and what they intended to mean with the post and reposting. Justice Sacco mailed Sam Biddle, and their meeting says a lot about the intentions of her post. Sam Biddle heard about the firing of Sacco. He felt guilty of ruining her life and career by reposting a post that she (Sacco) had posted without a bad intention only for the tweet to attract a massive outrage creating traffic in social media. However, when the two meets, Sacco is not bothered by what had happened. She appears healthy and emotionally perfect (Sam 2). Involving prime victims in the argument makes Sam’s argument more persuasive. This scenario and picture contradict everyone’s expectations. He expected Sacco to be mad at him during their meeting, and he was ready for a terrible day. However, their first date turned out to be the most memorable day in their lives, and the two became very close friends. This part tactfully convinces the audience to believe that Sacco had not posted intending to harm anyone.
Human beings are automated and often will react when people harm or trigger things that cause harm to them. Indeed, if Sacco had posted intending to harm a particular race or nation, she would not be friendly to Sam or be emotionally perfect, serene, and decent. Engaging Sacco in this argument is one thing that makes the argument strong. When audiences listen to the prime victim’s opinion, they will often learn much from them from how they present and defend themselves. Firstly, Sacco’s presentation strengthens Sam’s argument. She believes nothing terrible happened because what people understood was not what she meant. Sacco even proves Sam innocent and gives out her opinion regarding the post, which further makes the audience buy Sam’s argument. Sacco says that “I was so naive,” she said. She had never expected the tweet would be interpreted the way it was’. Sam, while adding to her statement, confirms that ‘Her tweet was supposed to mimic—and mock—what an actual racist, ignorant person would say’ (Sam 2). This picture of having two individuals who everyone would consider enemy talk like friends convinces as that the post did not intend to provoke anyone.
Second strategy: Sam is using himself as a specimen to show that the internet society will always insult and cause traffic online. Sam Biddle posts something that people understand differently as they did to Sacco’s post. In this case, he finds himself being blamed for what the internet society understood about his post. Sam does not understand why there was an outrage concerning his innocent post. He says, ‘But it seemed clear that some portion of the outraged mass I was now facing genuinely believed that I was advocating for middle school-style bullying’ (Sam 3). People had misread his irony and took what they understood from his post and were over his neck. The discussion is about Sacco’s post that had gone viral because of people’s misunderstanding of the post. Sam presents a similar situation where instead of Sacco, he is now the victim, and many people hit his inbox and ready to challenge him. This makes the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of posts appear a common thing on the internet, particularly in social media. Readers will understand that it is a common occurrence when people outrage to a post in social media, and they will believe that Sacco’s case could be out of mere people’s misunderstanding of sarcasm in her post. Often using a real case and victim makes things appear real and natural. Sam is a victim of internet misunderstanding which causes outrage. In this case, Sam seems to be doing a confirmatory experiment where she uses all similar specimens and only manipulates one aspect of the experiment (the owner of the post). Fortunately, the result is the same as in the first experiment. This makes his argument strong because it leaves the readers asking questions such as why was there outrage even when the owner of the post was different. It will make them believe that the internet society reacts to words in a post and will hardly engage their creative analysis to understand and effectively interpret a post hence causing unnecessary outrage.
Weaker article: Siri Srinivas’s arguments about Sacco’s post outrage take a different direction. In his argument, Siri compares Sacco’s post with a Kenyan write, Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay, that talks about how to write about Africa. In his essay, Wainaina writes about AIDS and uses certain statements and words which Siri considers similarly abusive and racist; thus, he (Siri) believes that Wainaina’s essay would have caused the same outrage as Sacco’s post (Siri 2). However, his argument is not strong enough because firstly, unlike Sacco’s post, Wainaina’s essay is not posted on twitter or social medial platform. Secondly, the audience of Wainaina’s essay and Sacco’s post are different in almost all aspects, making a comparison between two different things difficult. Hence, Siri’s argument may not be very persuasive and will hardly work for its intended audience since it strives to compare two different things with different characteristics.
Conclusion: Sacco’s post was plain, and the outrage was due to peoples’ misunderstanding of her sarcasm and joke. She wanted to mock the actual racist, probably some westerners who firmly believed that AIDS was an African thing. However, people took her post literally without analyzing it, leading to unnecessary outrage. Arguments need to be supported with facts that are appropriate to the context and the discussion. It becomes easy to win an argument when it is supported by real cases or facts that directly relate and almost similar to the topic. The analysis provides insight to understand beyond what one sees. It enables one to see a word, comment, or a picture and think beyond its frames or words to get the probably deeper meaning instead of the surface meaning. Analysis prevents unnecessary outrage, as seen in the Sacco’s case and helps stay relevant and aware of their actions because they would possibly understand more than what the eye sees.