Genre: I chose a comic because I think it’s an excellent visual aid and it can get a message across with not a lot of text. Since my audience is young I wanted to choose something that will grab their attention, comics can also be very nostalgic of one’s childhood so everyone can relate to it. A comic also allows for me to tell a story without tons of paragraphs which can be boring.
Purpose: My comic tells the story of a young girl who is excited to go to an HBCU because of its reputation and being able to be in a learning environment where she is surrounded by people who look just like her. Once she gets to the school she is shocked by what she sees. Her dream HBCU has been dominated by the white population who is taking part in cultural appropriation. In one box we see the cultural appropriation of hairstyles (braids, afro) or clothing (dashiki, a piece of clothing representing protest of society’s treatment towards African Americans) and other activities to emulate black culture in a stereotypical way. The girl is obvious very shocked and saddened causing her to scream NO because the thing she was trying to get away from ends up following her in the least likely place. This causes a secret agent from the black army to commence the intelligence war (non-violent) with the white people because he’s had enough of all the negative events happening. The purpose of this comic was to show how the increased rates of the white population at HBCUs can allow for a lot of controversial/ignorant things to happen like cultural appropriation because they will never identify with our culture or grasp the meaning behind certain beliefs or values. There will be the part of the white population who would take advantage of that and not care if they are offending anyone and African Americans are tired of it and want to show why it affects us.
Audience: The audience of my genre is young adults specifically ones that are starting the college process and the ones already in college. That is why my character in the comic is a young college student and the setting is on a HBCU. I want college students to reflect on their decision on why they chose a school and how that decision can affect another group of a different race, gender, etc. In this genre, I used how a white person’s decision to go to a HBCU affects the African Americans who want to go there because of things like the black experience.
Stance: I chose this theme because of stories that I read about how certain white people at HBCUS were ignorant to a lot of the black culture causing them to act in a very disrespectful manner. I wanted to create something that was representative of that.
