Day: November 3, 2019

I chose this song because I really like Koffee! She’s a Jamaican artist and this is the first single off her debut EP. She was 18 when it came out. The Pagoda takes place in Jamaica so that’s why I chose it.

“With respect to the long history of Black African and Native American interethnic contacts from the fifteenth century onward, Jack Forbes has argued that native, as well as part-African and part-native persons, were mostly misclassified with terms ranging from loro, mestizo, gens de couleur, or mulatto to dark or brown, to even negro, noir, or Black.”

The use of italics as well as the listing of different descriptors connected not solely by commas makes this sentence very melodic. Italics are usually used in a text when incorporating words from a different language. However Lisa Lowe uses them first in this way, stating “loro, mestizo, gens de couleur” then connects these words to words commonly spoken in English with an “or” Whilst mulatto and noir did not originate as English terms, their integration into the English language and the comfort with which many English speaking Americans use them (most likely due to historical context of race in this country) separates them from the non-English words which came before. Lowe continues to use the italics in order to keep the rhythm of the line. Rather than simply connect words with a comma she uses words like “or” or “to”. This shows that these words are related to the previous ones listed, but also their own stand-alone list. She then transitions to the third triplet: “….to even negro, noir, or Black.” Though not considered alliteration because there is not a third word beginning with “n”, using the same sound makes the line poetic. “To even” does well in pushing the purpose of the phrase by ending with the word “Black” landing the sentence on the most commonly known misclassification. The listing of all the misclassified terms in triplets and listing so many serves the purpose of not only informing and validating all these terms, but also showing the pure ridiculousness of being able to mislabel people in so many ways and ultimately avoid what they are actually called.