Vary The Agent, Vary The Image; Direct The Attention.

When Phillis Wheatley published her poem, it was "outlandish" (or socially taboo) to comprehend how a black woman could accomplish such a feat.

A more modern example is twitter: some of the impromptu remarks make by black, white, Asian, Latin, or whatever race can be quite interesting. Dependent upon the response is dependent upon the race. This raises serious concerns within society about who, we, the people, deem as a credible source to participate in influential conversations. I can’t help but think about Michel Foucault in how we can and should break cultural norms, by not immediately discrediting a person (or source) due to their seemingly lack of credibility.

I am also reminded about our class discussion, in how we must transcend our epistemology. Perhaps Knowledge can be drawn from all sources. But when Phillis Wheatley or an under-"represented" person, delivers a new idea, it is overlooked. 

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. not only explores race but briefly delves into class. In more recent research, Gates explores the class division based on the physicality of the particular community. More specifically, he observes that the class system in many Latin countries are dependent on how deep the hues are. 

Also associated with class is education. The people who are deprived of education are deemed less credible and are certainly not invited nor encouraged to participate in intellectually stimulating conversations. Gates points out the historical static development in African-Americans due to their initial forbidding to literacy. Until finally, a break-through:

When knowledge is written down into symbols, the agent is inadvertently prescribing a filter onto language to ‘direct the attention to one field rather than to the other’ (Burke, 46). Today, there are novels, essays, movies, journals, and documentaries about an array of people. These polar mediums do not portray singular stereotyped imagery about race, class, or religion.

Vary the agent, vary the image; direct the attention.