Analysis Of Donovan Livingston's Lift Off

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In “Lift Off” (2016), Donovan Livingston argues that education symbolizes the injustices and oppressions that have plagued America since its founding, but is also the key to success. Livingston displays this ideal by comparing slaves trying to learn (“any attempt...punishable by death”) to his own experiences in the classroom (being labeled as “disruptive, talkative, and a distraction”), by contrasting the fact that his past makes him unable to sit still and stand aside, to the fact that when faced with students similar to Livingston, educators often raise their voices in an attempt to silence them, and by alluding to a number of historical events that were fueled by education (such as Harriet Tubman’s quest for freedom, and the American Dream).

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