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Sumedha Gupta

KCCS101: WOC (A)

Audio Assignment Written Component

Professor Neha Mishra

04 November 2022

Part 1: Written Script

Is our perception of reality real? Let’s think about it through the lens of the case of

Emma DeGraffenried, which Kimberle Crenshaw discusses in her ted talk named “The

Urgency of Intersectionality.” Now, the reason we are using Emma’s case is because it

reveals that our perception of reality is not always the actual reality. Emma is an African-

American woman who got denied a job at a local car manufacturing plant. And her case was

that the reason she did not get the job was because she is an African-American woman. The

court, however, invalidated her argument because, according to them, the manufacturing

plant hired African-Americans, and they also hired women. And by acknowledging the

discrimination faced by her due to the intersection of being an African-American and being a

woman, they would give Emma preferential treatment. So, they dismissed her case. What this

case does is that it brings to light the court’s imagination of justice as opposed to the material

reality of Emma’s injustice. The court’s perception of justice lay in the fact that they could

not give Emma preferential treatment. Emma’s reality of injustice lies in the fact that the

court did not allow her to combine being an African-American and being a woman to fight

her case. The court is vested with immense power, and once they declare their verdict, it is

considered non-debatable. They used this power to embed their distorted perception of justice

in Emma’s reality of injustice. Now, this is an individual’s story. But this also happens at a

nationwide level.
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A few decades ago, particularly during British rule, the people of India or Hindustan

started identifying themselves with the religion Hinduism. Gail Omvedt in her essay The

Construction of Hinduism tells us that various Indian elites began to consolidate Hinduism as

the indicator for identifying people of Hindustan. This association of Indians with Hinduism

succeeded in creating a reality in which Hinduism is assumed to be the predominant religion

of everyone. India has always been a religiously diverse country. People belonging to Islam,

Sikhism, Christianity, etc were and are part of India too. Yet, Indian elites used their power to

solidify this imagined reality by promoting the public celebration of a Hindu festival, the

Ganesh festival, to unite different religious groups in India. They propagated their

imagination of the reality of Hinduism being the assumed religion of the nation by grounding

it into the material reality of the celebration of the Ganesh Festival.

In both these instances, we see that our perception of reality is not always real and

they continue to persist in the face of contrary material reality because these imaginations

have been anchored in material realities by authorities. Whether it be Emma’s case of grave

injustice or the consolidation of Hinduism as the main religion of a nation, authorities have

exercised their power to entrench their imaginations of realities into the material realities of

the marginalized. This has distorted the actuality of reality. So, asking if our perception of

reality is real, as I did in the beginning, is important. Because it makes us wonder about the

authenticity of the reality we live in and also reveals who creates these realities. These

stepping stones are instrumental in obtaining a perception of reality that is not distorted and is

inclusive of everyone’s reality.

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Part 2: Process Notes

I started writing the transcript by reading my essay thoroughly and then picking

sources I knew I could easily work with. I also thought about a few questions that helped me

answer my FD and decided that a question would fit as the perfect introduction because it

engages the listener by thinking about it. I also thought about the things that I usually look for

while listening to a podcast or a video essay. This made me understand the elements I had to

incorporate while writing the script. These elements included simplification of my argument,

ensuring brevity, and focusing on storytelling. All of these are necessary to engage and make

it easier for the audience to follow and understand. I also had to remember that most of my

sentences had to be simple because they are easier to follow. One difference I noticed while

writing the transcript was that I had a lot of freedom to explain the background of the proof I

was stating to back my thesis statement. While writing my FD, I had to ensure the relevance

of my explanation of evidence to my thesis statements at most times. But, here, it was not like

this. While writing an essay, following the process of telling and then showing works much

better because it relates the pieces of evidence to the claims in a much more feasible way.

Whereas here, not losing the audience is a key point and that is why I had to explicitly state

the reason as to why I was taking specific evidence. In doing so, the process of showing and

then telling became easier to execute. Although the process of writing a transcript was a

head-scratcher and, in many ways, a thought-provoking process, it made me understand the

assignment question much better, and I realized that I could have framed some of the close

readings of my sources much better.