Student Name

Teacher Name

Class Here

Date Here

Reading Response #6

The article “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan” is

written by June Jordan. The author happens to be a professor who attempts to teach “Black

English” instead of “Standard English.” The article describes black English as an endangered

species because schools teach standard English and parents scold you for using black English.

When the professor introduces the students to a book written in black English, they all said that

it was hard to read and sounded “weird.” The article introduces a student named Willie Jordan

who is intelligent and had his own study. Most of the students are black and come from the

same part of town as Willie which is why the article shifted when Willie’s brother was shot dead

by the local police.

The article described the murder as one we’ve all heard, a young black man, unarmed,

who was from a bad part of town and the police had no explanation as to why they shot him. In

contrast, a student in the class is a young black policeman who defends the decision of the

policemen by saying that race isn’t a factor. Furthermore, he suggests that people either

overreaction or underreaction and 9 times out of ten a policeman is going to overreact because

their life is at stake too. The article shows virtue because the victim is unarmed and a “good
person.” Additionally, the author also demonstrates enthymemes in the article because the

audience forms an assumption that the victim was shot because he was black and probably

from a bad part of town, because that’s how most police violence is perceived. The author also

uses emotions and moral values when explaining the aftermath of the murder, because there

was no justice and to the audience that is unmoral and makes them feel a combination of

emotions toward the situation.

The author describes the efforts put in to try and create some justice for the crime, but

all the efforts seemed to disappear as soon as they were introduced. Likewise, the article states

that not a lot of cases like these get any justice or trial because they are not a public problem

and there are money problems. The author ends with an essay written by Willie Jordan, the

essay illustrates his intelligence but also shows the kind of frustrating and raw emotion anyone

would feel toward such injustice. This essay was the perfect ending to the article because there

probably was no happy ending because at the end of the day Willie’s brother is still dead and

nobody is being charged with his murder. Moreover, the article was nothing new to me, the

world I’ve grown up in has many crimes that go unserved and unheard, but I’ve never

experienced any of them for myself because I’m a white privileged girl. The author proposes

that police only react on their instincts, without considering race, but to me the article was the

same old story with different names, nothing new.