Rhetorical Analysis Essay The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past (Obama).” This took place during the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. In the world, there is still segregation between whites and blacks. Soon after this speech in 2008, he was also elected as the President of the United States. During this time, many people thought segregation was gone, but that was not the case, according to Obama. The challenges that African Americans face and continue to face in terms of legal, social, and economic discrimination in the United States must go. The speaker is Barack Obama, in 2008 he was an attorney. He gave this speech when he ran for the US Senate. This speech, A More Perfect Union, was a response to …show more content…
The way Obama uses pathos is how good he is at changing the audience's feelings. He shared many stories that happened to him and touched the audience's hearts. One of the things he talks about is the relationship between him and his family. “And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care or education or the need to find good jobs for every American (Obama 5)”. Finally, this could also be one of the reasons Barack Obama was elected President of the United States shortly after. The most effective part of this speech is this paragraph. “Segregated schools were and are inferior; we still haven't fixed them, 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education. And the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students (Obama 5)”. The reason this one is so popular is because many people flipped after this. They finally realized that this had been going on for 50 years, even after they tried to stop it. Kids can not even go to school in peace. The things Wright was saying had many people in disbelief. He made racial
Roy Peter Clark, author of “A More Perfect Union”: Why It Worked, takes a stance on President Barack Obama’s speech while analyzing it. President Barack Obama delivered a speech titled “A More Perfect Union.” His speech focused on the prominent issue of racism in America. In this article, Clark talks about President Obama’s known power and brilliance. Clark makes references and comparisons to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and W.EB. DuBois. “A More Perfect Union” features writing techniques that makes the message more defined and effective. President Obama utilizes four closely related rhetorical strategies. Clark broadly explains the purpose of the rhetorical strategies. Allusion, parallelism, two-ness, and autobiography helped to shape President Obama’s speech that that was meant to create
Specifically, when Obama says in lines “Removing the flag from this state 's capital would not be an act of political correctness. It would do no harm, it would simply be an acknowledgement that the cause for which they fought the cause of slavery was wrong.” This serves as to say actions always have a deeper meaning and that you can 't always please everyone but you must take an effort to correct and make up for past mistakes. Obama does this to remind the South Carolina people of this harsh time and they were able to perceive and create a stronger country. Another way he uses pathos is when he remarks how “The whole week [President Obama] reflected on the idea of grace, the grace reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons. The grace described in one of {President Obamas] favorite hymnals- the one we all know” he continues to go on and sing amazing grace. This shows the reader how Reverend Pinckney’s sermons were with such connections to the hierarchy that they were almost a god given gift that was sent from the heavens to bring everyone together just like the song “Amazing Grace” which is known throughout the world. Obama also uses all theses quotes to show how he has taken the time to relate to the ideologies and beliefs of the Reverend as well as to show to these people attending this funeral and to the people watching it across the country that he is
He wants to move past the racial segregation and move towards a truly unified country, and he uses pathos by talking about the about his upbringing and his life. The use of the descriptions of his youth with a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas shows that he can relate to the common person, seeing as he had to adjust to both sides of his family as well as the stigmas that both sides had. The urgency in which Obama answered the accusations of being similar to Wright, caused the American public to realize he does not have the same mentality. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism."
When Barack Obama ran for presidency, there were a lot of questions about his race, color, and whether he was born in the U.S.. The comments from his pastor Jeremiah Wright put him in an awkward situation, so he decided to give this speech to prove the point that we are all the same and live in the same country, so there shouldn’t be any discrimination among anyone. In his speech, Obama uses rhetorical devices to explain how race discrimination is affecting our country and us in every way possible. The use of rhetorical devices in this speech has strong effects on the audience. The use of allusion, symbolism, optimistic tone, and repetition of words gives the speech a strong argumentative tone. He argues the fact that to be able to achieve such big goals and how out country was supposed to be from the beginning, we need to stay united and rely on younger
“A More Perfect Union” was delivered by Barack Obama on March 18, 2008. At the time her gave the speech he was senator and running in the president election. Obama responded to his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, and also discussed the issue with race in America. This problem is important to us as a whole, because we went through plenty of racism in the past. He wants the prevent those incidents from according again. He did an excellent job using rhetoric tools to support his beliefs, which led to a successful election.
Since the election of President Barrack Obama in 2008, many people have started to believe that America is beyond racial inequalities - this is not the reality. Rather, we, as a society, chose to see only what we want to see. Discrimination is still rampant in our nation. Michelle Alexander explains that since the Jim Crow laws were abolished, new forms of racial caste systems have taken their place. Our society and criminal justice system claim to be colorblind, but this is not the actuality. Michelle Alexander explains:
Through capturing these events and images in the minds of his audience, Obama writes, “Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world” (14). Obama’s references of biblical and historical events which are known today from history as powerful stories of difficulty and perseverance is used to describe the struggles of racial inequality. As racial inequality itself is a huge problem which creates separation between races even till today, Obama’s allusion to these events match well with putting into perspective
In the beginning when he begins to say, “Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many.(par. 5)” This is an emotional appeal that is calling to a lot grievances that all the Americans have been affected by in one way or the other. Calling attention to how America is in a crisis and being able to use it to have the audience invest in what Obama is saying and connect with him, is a very strategic use of ethos and accomplishes what it needs to. Another use of pathos that peaked my interest in particular was when he stated, “A man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant can now stand before you to take the most sacred oath (par 31)” This shows how great a change there has been in America in their ideology of how everyone is equal. It appeals since he is the first President to have roots in the African American heritage. I believe that this emits strong emotions because equality was one of the biggest problems in America, and what he stated really shows how America has become a place that has advanced far and fast in terms of equality. Also when he states “The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. (par 8)” Again Obama calls towards equality in America being one of the main calls when it comes to ethos. This is because Obama is personally an example of what this equality has been able to make it possible for him to be the President. It is a very emotional subject as well as the “pursuit of happiness”, something brought back from the constitution of the United States when it was
Does being American mean working together or is it everyone for themselves? Unification will solve the issues troubling America, like privileges, education, and healthcare. The so called white privilege that all other races blame as the reason they get passed up for jobs or use as a way to hide their insecurities , the crumbling education system that is separating the rich from the poor during childhood, and the horrible healthcare system that causes the poor to remain uninsured. The speech given by Senator Barack Obama in 2008 called “A More Perfect Union” as a response to Reverend Wright’s preaches about racism. Using the comments as a platform, Senator Obama addresses other issues in the country. This speech
In my own life I do not experience racism, and on SLU’s campus I do not see segregation. But as I read and listen to the speech, the flow of words awakens these dormant thoughts inside my head, are these things still going on today? As I read through the speech and come across lines like, “the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination,” (King) I think that can’t really be true in today’s society. But, as I continue to read the words draw parallels in today’s society, “the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” (King). African Americans today among racial and ethnic groups have the highest rate of poverty at 27.4 percent (Engdahl). The systemic segregation in major cities leads to weaker education and eventually less prosperous African American communities. As the speech progresses the parallels are more evident when MLK says, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” (King). The problem is that African Americans are often judged by the color of their skin. In New York, a major metropolitan area, “80% of the traffic stops made were blacks and 85% of those people were frisked, compared to a mere 8% of white people stopped (Engdahl).
In the beginning of the speech Barack Obama reflects back to where his parents and grandparents came from and what they did as their occupation. Obama shows pathos, logos and ethos many times throughout his 2004 keynote speech. He also spoke on why his mother and father gave him the name that they gave him. By doing so, Barack Obama showed pathos throughout the speech and got his audience to know him a bit before pursuing the Democratic Party to vote for John Kerry. He appeals to his audience by mentioning that his parents are both passed away, and from the look of things that did not stop him from standing where he was that day with pride and sadness:
When Barack Obama was running for president and then became president of the United States, the results didn’t change, even though we were being exposed to an admired African American. George Wallace said while being inaugurated as governor “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” This does still hold true but not in the sense that he meant it. We still judge and make assumptions based on color and people self-segregate in some situations. We don’t ever know if it will ever really be equal, since we can’t change what happened over fifty years ago; but I think over time it will become less and less of an issue- it will still be present but not as distinct.
We may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction. Barack Obama’s speech “A More Perfect Union” (Nov. 17, 2008) captivates our nation with its thought out structure of the division and inequality in America. Obama successfully used allusion and repetition. Along with personal anecdotes to identify with the audience.
Laws describe that there is should be no difference between any citizens of America in regards to their race or color. As a country, the United States has seen many presidents in the office and their policies have set a definition of their success in the history; Barack Obama, the current president of the United States and the first African-American to lead the free nation, has been respected and criticized as “Magical Negro”. Obama 's presidency is a sign of post-racial America, but it is not accurate to say that racism has not played a role to elect him as a President? Seitz claims, “ a widespread sense that replacing George W. Bush with [Obama] would send a definitive signal that it was time to rebuild, toward a post-racial [society]. It was an absurd hope… deep down [Obama] wants ‘us [whites]’ to succeed, is happy to help ‘us’ succeed” (Seitz 359). An African-American has the power to lead the most powerful country in the world, but his leadership and success depend on other white people 's success. Obama has the power, but he is portrayed as a servant of whites who needs a mentor. At the end, he will be considered just a slave of whites. Obama 's presidency is constructing a racist and stereotypical popular culture. Although there have been many changes and reforms in the laws, African-Americans have faced many obstacles in America. Omi states, “the United States was a society shaped by
The Pan American Health Organization has had a long standing relationship with Jamaica dating back as far as 1954 where the Pan American Health Organization established a small office in Jamaica. (PAHO, n.d.) Upon establishing the office at the time, the main health concern was Malaria which was major health concern during this period. This laid the foundation for the relationship shared between Jamaica and the PAHO to date. The Pan American Health Organization office in Jamaica served 5 other countries (The Bahamas, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Cayman Islands and Bermuda) until in the late seventies early eighties when the Bahamas (Taking responsibility for Turks and Caicos) and Belize established their own offices.