Analysis Of Nonviolent Protest By Cesar Chavez

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In this essay, Cesar Chavez uses appeals to people’s sense of right and wrong to make the
argument that nonviolent protests are the only acceptable forms of protesting.
To support this claim, Chavez cites Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., great leaders who popularized the practice of nonviolent protests, to appeal to ethos. He refers to Gandhi’s usage of boycotts as one of the best forms of nonviolent protest, because it allows lots of people to directly be involved in a cause. Martin Luther King also followed Gandhi’s example as evident in the Montgomery bus boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks. Even though Chavez is just a farmer, he too is a part of a farmer’s union that practices nonviolent protests, furthering the legitimacy of his argument.
Logically this argument is appealing because most people have a strong sense of right and wrong. Chavez asserts that nonviolence is that only way of gathering support for a cause because violence can cause great pain as lives are lost, and is overall demoralizing. He then goes on to …show more content…

He relates his point to great leaders and appeals to the empathetic side of people when talking about the effects of violence. He then ties that into the second half of his essay, where he begins to talk about how the people of the land and the poor are the ones who are always the most affected. Chavez obviously identifies with the poor, and concludes the essay by saying that the rich have money, but the poor have time. What he means by this statement is that the poor will continue to join together in a union while the rich do nothing but count their money. By having the time to do this, time is the worker union’s greatest ally because it only allows them to get stronger. Honestly, this does not seem to relate very closely to the rest of the deep, emotional essay, but rather as a way for Chavez subtly to push his own agenda at the end of his

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