MLK Day: Community in Action

When I discovered that our assignment was to listen to a keynote speech related to Martin Luther King day, I was semi-interested in how it would turn out. Much to my dissapointment, I ended up mentally pleading for the seminar to finally end as each tedious minute dragged on. After listening to, "A World Without Poverty", I concluded that Sylvia Orduno's speech proved ultimately ineffective. I found this speech to be so, due to the speaker's utter lack of organization, preparedness, and passion.

The most significant factor that Miss Orduno failed to accomplish were her organizational skills. It seemed as if she was simply floundering around varied subjects, and going on about different tangents, which made the presentation quite difficult to follow, and left me a bit puzzled. For instance,Miss Orduno began her speech with something about listening to the radio this morning, and hearing arguments on racism; then all of a sudden she started speaking about the history of Martin Luther King in random chronological segments. As she was speaking, Miss Orduno admitted, "I'm actually bringing together all kinds of stuff"; yet then quite soon enough, she began speaking about a considerable number of citizens who lived in Detroit without water, which seemed to take up an extensive amount of her presentation time.

This particular lack of organization can also be connected with Miss Orduno's lack of preparedness. Although I empathize that she must have had little time to prepare, I would still expect better from someone who has been so involved with this particular campaign for such a prolonged period of time. More than once, I noticed that Sylvia would occasionally lose her train of thought. She repeatedly apologized, but in the end, the apologies didn't do anything to dignify her speech.

I must say that one of the most substantial ways in which a speaker can prove being effective or ineffective, is the amount of passion and enthusiasm they contain; not only in their tone of voice, but throughout the entire way they present themselves during their speech. If the speaker lacks passion, then I won't be able to truly enjoy or be impacted by what the speaker is attempting to bring across. It seemed as though Miss Orduno was simply going through the motions; sprinkling her sentences with various "ums", and speaking in a monotone voice. I really wanted to believe that what she was speaking about had meaning, but I failed to be impacted.

Although Miss Orduno's seminar was less than spectacular, her attempts were not completely fallible. Marian Kramer's video was succinct but impacting. I could tell that she was truly dedicated to her cause, and for that, the," A World Without Poverty Seminar" can be redeemed in a minor sense, although I still found it ineffective.