Why We Can T Wait Rhetorical Analysis

Throughout his preface of the book titled Why We Can’t Wait, which entails the unfair social conditions of faultless African Americans, Martin Luther King employs a sympathetic allegory, knowledge of the kids, and a change in tone to prevail the imposed injustice that is deeply rooted in the society—one founded on an “all men are created equal” basis—and to evoke America to take action.
To depict the unfair daily lives of African Americans, Martin Luther King begins with an allegory, a boy and a girl representing faultless African Americans in the nation. The readers are able to visualize and smell the vermin-infested apartment houses and the “stench” of garbage in a place where African American kids live. The stench and vermin infested houses metaphorically portray our nation being infested with social injustice. Even the roofs of the houses are “patched-up” of bandages that were placed repeatedly in order to cover a damage. However, these roofs are not fixed completely since America has been pushing racial equality aside as seen in the Plessy v. Ferguson court case in which it ruled that African Americans were “separate but equal”. Ever since the introduction of African Americans into the nation for slavery purposes, the society

has begun to cave in and is in danger of falling apart because of injustice; America has been delaying the changes need to be made. Also, the poor conditions that both the boy and the girl live in are not just a one-time situation; they occur “everyday”, meaning that African Americans have no place of escape: some are and will always be in a same low-position because no promotions exist. For they live in a white supremacy land, whites would be offered with a better option and African Americans would always be looked down upon by society, never being able to climb up in the social hierarchy. Emphasizing the hapless African Americans, Martin Luther directly utilizes the word “forced” when depicting the African American girl to portray that none of them asked or did anything to deserve the injustice they face in their daily lives. The society merely forced the unfair treatments on them. Along with the allegory, Martin Luther King’s inclusion of the knowledge of the boy and the girl further emphasizes the society’s continual denial of their rights, despite the lack of fault the African Americans have. Portrayed through the use of hypophora, the faultlessness of black people is further highlighted: African Americans did not do any of the questions that wondered about in the children’s heads, but theses miseries constantly “haunt” the majority of black people. They did no wrong but as time passes, the questions seem to take over in their heads, stimulating a false perception of their non-existent wrongdoings. In contrast to what the kids do not know, King explains the part of the history that the kids do know. However, because the history that the kids do know are censored by the white society, even the part of their own culture is altered by those who forced racial injustice upon them. Conversely, in juxtaposing the description of the boy’s Sunday school teacher with the white textbook writers, King evinces the differences in history that is told by a person who is the same race as him and personal to him and the history altered by white writers. African Americans as a whole were faced with conflicting ideals and truths, which were withheld from them by society. Since education and knowledge are few of the many that provide social mobility, white people had made sure to censor the truth for their own benefits. Last but not least, the fact that the speaker of black history was just confined to mention it on Negro History Week shows how little of importance their history was considered as. Just as black history was confined to one week, the lives of African Americans were confined, limited to only “colored-only” public facilities. All in all, because the white textbook writers control the information, the history of the African Americans, the white society in turn control the inequality.
Aside from the brutal mistreatment of black people, Martin Luther King provides a glimpse of hope by changing the tone of the preface from a sympathetic to a hopeful one.

The joining of the boy’s and the girl’s hands both metaphorically and literally, indicate the need for a united effort that Martin Luther King demands from the whole nation. Despite the “stretching miles” ahead of them, symbolizing the adversities to come. By stressing their step by using alliteration, King emphasizes that one step, the one movement that could potentially save the society from falling apart by racial injustice; he essentially states that the society as a whole needs to and should join their hands as well and that their steps will also make a

difference.
King may have been calling to action to those who lived during the 1960s; however, this preface still is relevant today for racial inequality is not gone. What will society ado to make that change and live by the standard of “all men are created equal”?