Black and White by Thomas

Black and White by Thomas

“Who am I?” (Thomas 415). Many ask themselves this relevant question in times of self-doubt or ambivalence. Leona Thomas asks this question in her essay entitled, “Black and White.” As the child of a black father and a white mother, Thomas finds herself in a racial dilemma. Society punishes Thomas for being “mixed.” Through the use of the literary techniques of pathos, logos, and inductive reasoning, Thomas effectively persuades the reader that society should look beyond one’s mixture. She shows that racial orientation should not determine how a person is perceived by society, and that the people in society should stop being racist to one another.

Thomas uses pathos in order to demonstrate the difficulties she had to endure while growing up as an interracial child. She goes in depth concerning the treatment she received from both racial spectrums. Thomas presents her first example of unfair treatment from a black person’s perspective by stating how whites reacted when they found out her true identity beyond her physical appearance. She states, “I have had friends never speak to me again, parents forbid their children to play with me, job offers suddenly evaporate…when people found out my father is black” (416). Thomas distinctly uses these examples mainly because they are synonymous with the racial boundaries that blacks endure in an everyday American society. Furthermore, these examples grab the emotions of the reader, especially if the reader is black. To further the influence of pathos in the essay, Thomas changes her direction by focusing on how the black community did not accept her, knowing of her mixture. She provides her second example of society’s ignorance by explaining her...

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...rticulars) in order to achieve her conclusion (the general). From the examples of the sororities to those of the racial mentality of society, Thomas is able to devise a conclusion which states, “Racism and hatred only divide people; it is time to start building bridges and stop destroying one another” (418). Certainly, Thomas successfully and effectively gets her points across by using an abundance of examples and evidence.

“Who am I?” (415). This is the question Leona Thomas asks in her essay entitled “Black and White.” Through the use of pathos, logos, and inductive reasoning Thomas is able to come to a consensus that “I am black and white, both races, both cultures, and both heritages” (418). For Thomas, there is some form of closure as to where she belongs racially and culturally, but many others still lie in ambivalence concerning their race and culture.