Rhetorical Analysis: A More Perfect Union

Barack Obama delivered a powerful speech before an audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, in response to prior events involving some very controversial and insensitive anti-American comments from his former pastor and, until shortly before the speech was given, campaign participant, Jeremiah Wright. The speech was entitled “A More Perfect Union”, a phrase which he borrows from the preamble of the U.S. Constitution to remind his audience of the original values of America’s founding fathers and their goal to create an independent democratic nation, free of tyranny, i.e., a perfect union. Obama reveals that the long-lasting issue with that goal is that it was incomplete at the time and has yet to be reached

today with the ongoing racial divide that continues to draw this country further and further away from the concept of “perfection”. He uses a series of rhetorical devices throughout his presentation to effectively discuss the good and bad aspects of every individual’s side to the issue of racial division and to express why he believes that no side is right or wrong. The survival of his campaign depended on how effectively he was able to get his points across and turn America’s cynicism into cooperation and hope for the future.
Because of Jeremiah Wright’s close association with Obama himself, the American public turned against the democratic candidate, inadvertently blaming him for the remarks of Wright that created such a strong sense of acrimony and animosity nationwide.

Yet, despite his condemnation of Reverend Wright’s controversial statements, Obama was still receiving many questions regarding his own knowledge of Wright’s political views prior to the situation and the candidacy in general. He effectively uses a parallel structure of sentences to address these questions all at once. Did he know Wright to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? “Of course.” Did he ever hear Wright make controversial remarks while in church? “Yes.” But he explains how those views and remarks did not entirely define Jeremiah Wright as a person and that it is unfair to see them reflected through Obama himself and his political campaign. “Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views?” he asks. “Absolutely.” He addressed these questions before giving the audience the chance to actually ask him in person as a way to put ease to the “firestorm”, a metaphor he uses to describe the public outcry that his former pastor had single-handedly catalyzed. This choice in diction emphasizes the magnitude and severity of of the response to outrageous comments that Obama continues to dismiss as perverse ideologies that stemmed from a profoundly distorted view of the politics of

America.
Further into the speech, the speaker decides to turn the discussion to talk about the issue of race, an issue which he firmly believed the nation could “not afford to ignore” because it is a costly issue that is a large underlying reason that other challenges such as healthcare, education, and unemployment are so difficult to handle.

He reminds the audience that disparities that exist today in not only the African-American community, but the entire American community as a whole, can be traced back to the America’s long history of racial inequality and suffering that the early Americans enabled to exist, from the age of slavery even up to the mid-20th century. This was the time of Reverend Wright’s generation, “a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.” The paradox of systematically constricted opportunity that Obama uses here supports his earlier point that the founding fathers’ original goal to create a free land of opportunity has always been tethered by their failure to recognize the fact that not everyone in the land is equally free and privileged. Many have ever since then been held back by the restraint of discrimination that tears away at the so-called “opportunities” that they have been granted. Obama says that it is remarkable, though, how many of them overcame the odds and “scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American dream,” and made a way out of no way for future generations. His choice

in diction in that sentence is effective because rather than sugarcoating the situation, he emphasizes the difficulty that these earlier African-Americans had to face from being denied certain luxuries that white Americans had to help them succeed, forcing them to “scratch” and “claw” their way and overcome more obstacles in order to thrive. Growing up in such a time does not vindicate Jeremiah Wright for his offensive words but it can help explain how he has made the mistake of simplifying and stereotyping the negative aspects of society to the point of distorting his own internalized reality.
Obama wraps up his speech saying that America can go one of two ways. It could remain a static society, as Wright would describe it, that makes no progress and is still “irrevocably bound to a tragic past.” It could accept the division and conflict that result from the way it has viewed and handled politics and race in the past with examples such as the O.J. Simpson Trial or in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It could continue talking about Jeremiah Wright’s sermons and questioning Obama’s belief and sympathy in the way the subjects and ideologies of those sermons were presented. “We can do that,” he says. “But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.” He effectively uses repetition here to express how the situation will literally repeat itself over and over again until people decide to do something about it and finally make a change. However, America could go the other direction by coming together and saying “Not this time.” He uses repetition again but this time to create a motif saying that “this time” will be different. “This time,” we want to talk about the real issues like crumbling schools and lack of healthcare. “This time,” we want to reject cynicism and animosity and look at the big picture. “This time,” people will choose to realize that all of the men and women of every color in this country can all be fighting for the same purpose which is to come together and create change for the future.
Obama’s use of rhetorical devices throughout his impactful presentation helped him distance himself from Jeremiah Wright’s actions and save his own reputation with the press, voters, and the rest of America in general. And, on top of that, he discussed the problem with the racial divide in America and how it is up to today’s society and future generations to make the choice to accept each other’s differences and look at the big picture in order to make real changes for the future that will ultimately help push this country closer and closer to the goal of perfection.