Nonfiction Critical Analysis
"21st Century Slavery" by Alessandra Potenza
The overall main idea of the article, "21st Century Slavery" is that any forms of slavery that occur currently should be eliminated and people should be concerned about the forms of slavery that are carried out to this day. The entire text is mostly about the different types of slavery and where they occur throughout the world. At first I assumed that by "slavery," Potenza was exaggerating about how hard some laborers worked. But, she was actually referring to the laborers around the world who didn't get paid, didn't get fed properly, and got tortured for their bad deeds. Some particular details that helped me understand what Potenza was trying to say were that "men, women, children, [were] lured into trafficking by the promise of a job and a better job—and then forced to work with little or no pay, or coerced to sell their bodies." Clearly these people aren't being given the ideal life. Instead, these people were desperate people trying to support their families and were tricked into trafficking (deal or trade in something illegal) and were even coerced (threatened) to sell their own body parts for money which went to their masters. Another thing that helped me realize that the author knew what she was talking about was that she was quoting people who had elevated knowledge on modern-day slavery. For instance, Potenza quoted President Barack Obama on his assertion, "The injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking... must be called by its true name—modern day slavery," which makes her main idea stronger. Moreover, Potenza had a visual representation of the amount of human trafficking around the world. She included a key where the red countries designated areas with more than 500,000 slaves, orange represented between 100,000 and 500,000, mustard yellow represented 25,000 to 100,000, and lastly, yellow represented less than 25,000 slaves. With this map, Potenza proves that modern slavery occurs "in all corners of the globe." Mauritania, not a country that is recognized often, is the most dominant slave country, which includes a growing 740,000 people who were are born into slavery. All of these features support and connect to the main idea because they are the same topic as the main idea and they relate to the details in a strengthening manner.
Furthermore, Alessandra Potenza wants the reader to think that slavery is dreadful and it should not exist to this day. She does this by engaging the reader with pictures, captions, anti-slavery campaigns, and enslaved survivors that make the reader feel sorrowful. Moreover, this isn't plain using pictures; Potenza carefully utilizes photographs that portray the worst of enslaved lives. For example, in Potenza's title picture, there's an African boy carrying rocks. The caption says: "A 14-year-old works in a granite mine in Burkina Faso, in West Africa." However, this isn't an ordinary picture of an African boy carrying rocks. After observing this picture, you can see that this is a bony boy carrying granite rocks on his head for support, he's wearing a cloth around his head to block the glaring sun and withstand the sharp rocks, and he's walking up a jagged, dusty wasteland. Also, another heart-breaking observation is the boy's shirt; it says "WORLD CHAMP" and "SOCCER PRO." He most likely enjoyed playing soccer to a great extent and dreamed about about it, which soon came to an end when his family was tricked into human trafficking. Later in the article, Potenza provides another two photographs. One of them is an Asian man wearing only a rag on his private areas while working as fast as lightning. The second picture is a little different from the first two; the people of Uzbekistan definitely look more relaxed and less beat while they're working but "many of them [are] young people," the caption says. The article says that picking cotton is a government organized job that everyone is forced to do but the young children that are born into this slavery have huge lives ahead of them which they may never make use of. Finally, another craft move that Potenza uses is including biographies of enslaved survivors. Ima Matul, Rachel Thomas, and Holly Austin Smith all have heart-breaking stories of their lives in human trafficking that engage the readers into thinking and feeling for the people enslaved today.
In conclusion, I learned that I don't take into consideration how the majority of the products in my house are made. My thinking about how some wealthy people just spend money carelessly can be helping the unpaid laborers in countries far out in the world. My opinion on this topic is that slavery definitely should not exist today. I want to know more about how people become so desperate for food and money that they would join an unknown organization and get tricked into getting enslaved.
Furthermore, Alessandra Potenza wants the reader to think that slavery is dreadful and it should not exist to this day. She does this by engaging the reader with pictures, captions, anti-slavery campaigns, and enslaved survivors that make the reader feel sorrowful. Moreover, this isn't plain using pictures; Potenza carefully utilizes photographs that portray the worst of enslaved lives. For example, in Potenza's title picture, there's an African boy carrying rocks. The caption says: "A 14-year-old works in a granite mine in Burkina Faso, in West Africa." However, this isn't an ordinary picture of an African boy carrying rocks. After observing this picture, you can see that this is a bony boy carrying granite rocks on his head for support, he's wearing a cloth around his head to block the glaring sun and withstand the sharp rocks, and he's walking up a jagged, dusty wasteland. Also, another heart-breaking observation is the boy's shirt; it says "WORLD CHAMP" and "SOCCER PRO." He most likely enjoyed playing soccer to a great extent and dreamed about about it, which soon came to an end when his family was tricked into human trafficking. Later in the article, Potenza provides another two photographs. One of them is an Asian man wearing only a rag on his private areas while working as fast as lightning. The second picture is a little different from the first two; the people of Uzbekistan definitely look more relaxed and less beat while they're working but "many of them [are] young people," the caption says. The article says that picking cotton is a government organized job that everyone is forced to do but the young children that are born into this slavery have huge lives ahead of them which they may never make use of. Finally, another craft move that Potenza uses is including biographies of enslaved survivors. Ima Matul, Rachel Thomas, and Holly Austin Smith all have heart-breaking stories of their lives in human trafficking that engage the readers into thinking and feeling for the people enslaved today.
In conclusion, I learned that I don't take into consideration how the majority of the products in my house are made. My thinking about how some wealthy people just spend money carelessly can be helping the unpaid laborers in countries far out in the world. My opinion on this topic is that slavery definitely should not exist today. I want to know more about how people become so desperate for food and money that they would join an unknown organization and get tricked into getting enslaved.
This was a very well-written blog post. I really liked the high level vocabulary that you used in it. I thought you did very good with the use of quotes from the article to explain what you were thinking about the topic. I learned about how important it is to think about the things we buy and how they were made. I also think that slavery and human trafficking shouldn't exist today. This was a very meaningful article to write about and I think you did a good job writing about it.
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