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Kochiyama Speech 'Consciousness Is Power'

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Speeches can lead to an audience with different opinions about the message. Some people might support the speaker’s main points, while others will not. A speech that exemplifies this is the speech “Consciousness is Power”. Kochiyama was a famous Asian-American civil rights activist. She gave the speech “Consciousness is Power” on November 3,1995 to an audience of primarily Asian Americans. Speeches commonly leave people with mixed feelings about the message of the speech. It is very rare that everyone will interpret a speech in the same way. The difference in feelings can be attributed to several things. For example, the type of language choices made by the author can lead to a disconnect in terms of how supporter and non-supporter interprets …show more content…
Things that may seem harmless to some people; however, with connections to other things, people can interpret the sentence differently. For example, if there is certain context that is not taken to account about the author, then the overall meaning of the piece can take on new meanings. This exact occurrence can be seen in “Consciousness is Power”. One important piece of context many fail to acknowledge was that she was an extreme supporter of the group called the Black Panthers. This group was a revolutionary Black nationalist group. Some of their methods and beliefs were put into question by many. For instance, one of their most famous achievements was stopping police brutality through the implementation of armed patrol. There ideology was once put into so much question that they were labeled, "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country", by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Director, J. Edgar Hoover. This can also be applied in the speech, because when the speech refers to the Black Panthers, she only mentions the positive aspect of the group, therefore creating a disconnect between the audience members. This can create several different interpretation such as a simple call to action or something more

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