Rhetorical Analysis Of The New Sovereignty By Shelby Steele

Despite our founding principle that “all men are created equal” (Jefferson), American life isn’t characterized by equality or fairness. Although we acknowledge that each member of humanity bears equal value, we fail to provide them with such equality in life. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiment are two factors that prevent America from being equal. Frederick Douglass identified this gap between value and reality for Americans when he found himself “not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary” (¶3) of the Fourth of July, “a day that reveals to [the American

Racial oppression in the United States has been present for almost a century now. Although slavery was abolished in the 1860s, people associated in target groups are still being mistreated by racial oppression in different ways. In the article “Being Poor, Black, and American” written by William Julius Wilson, a sociologist and professor at Harvard University, Wilson shows that political, economic, and cultural forces are the primary forces that contains the distinction between target and agent group positions. From the immigration policies, the workplace policies, and stereotypical views portrayed by society, these all have an impact on how an individual can live their life. Altogether, these forces ultimately keep people in check with society’s rules and regulations on what is right and wrong and keep them from stepping out of their place.

Convincing an audience of 133.4 million is a daunting task, especially when they must be convinced to join a war less than thirty years after World War I. On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the State of the Union Address that began his third term as president. This speech, broadcast across the United States on the radio, sparked the idea to join World War II even before Pearl Harbor was attacked. In this speech, he fully supports the English against the attack of the dictators trying to extinguish democracy across the world. He proposes the four freedoms that America is invested in protecting around the world: freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in any way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. In his speech, “The Four Freedoms,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspires nationalism and creates fear in his audience to convince them to join the war ravaging through Europe through many forms of metaphor and repetition.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, explains to his readers why the colonies chose to abolish Great Britain’s government. His goal is to inform the readers that the government has certain responsibilities to the governed and that the British failed to adhere to its responsibilities to its colonists. His second goal is to justify their actions by explaining why it was not considered treason. By establishing his credibility and appealing to ethos, pathos and logos, Jefferson successfully wrote an informative, impactful, and inspirational document.

This is a speech from the movie Independence Day (1996). A foreign spacecraft has fallen from the sky and alien species have already diminished cities from around the world. Survivors of the alien attacks head to Area 51, where it is rumored that the government holds alien spacecraft. They devise a plan against the alien species and July 4th is their attack day. The president stands up, and over an intercom gives a motivational speech to the fighter pilots from around the world. His purpose for the speech is to unite the fighters from around the world before they go attack the aliens.

Many believe that civil rights movements have completely eradicated racial injustices and inequality in the United States. Michelle alexander disprove this myth in her book “The New Jim Crow.” Alexander claims racial caste did not die with slavery. She implies that the racial caste system in America has been reformed multiple times to meet “the needs and demands of current political climates” (alexander 52). She believes that mass incarceration which she refers to as “The New Jim Crow” is the current caste system in the United States. By elaborating on the history of racial caste in America and by including quotes from politicians such as Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, Alexander effectively persuades her reader that the United States has not achieved

In recent years, there has been increased discussion about the treatment of minorities in the U.S. While there have been numerous laws passed that protect their freedoms, many Americans maintain a negative mindset toward other ethnicities. Due to people’s reservations, our country has been unable to make substantial progress toward equality. In The Nation’s article, “The Truth About Race in America: It’s Getting Worse, Not Better,” by Gary Younge, the author utilizes factual information, historical allusions, and related quotes to effectively contend that race relations are worsening within the United States.

1B) The Declaration of Independence uses several rhetorical strategies, making the argumentative testament of the wrongdoings of the king an effective in pursuing equality for all men. Jefferson utilizes logos, pathos and ethos to prove his point to the country holding their liberty prisoner. Jefferson’s use of logos begins with stating the obvious reason the king should set the people free: the people have the right to the pursuit of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” (2). The King has not done good to the people, in fact he has refused to pass the laws necessary to create order, dissolved representative houses, cut off trade, and imposed unlawful taxes upon the people. They have the basic human rights given to them by God that should set them free from the tyrannical king. Some of the emotional side of Jefferson’s views slip into this argument, such as "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable" (5). While stating further wrongdoings, Jefferson’s use of pathos increases, raising the rage of the republic at the injustice of the rules they have been subjected to. “He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation” (26). Jefferson calls for a sense of empathy from the crown and establishes a sense of severe discontent

“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom” stated once Dwight D Eisenhower. Thomas Jefferson, the father of our Declaration of Independence, had the same mentality as him in seeking for freedom. Jefferson decided to write this document as a way of declaring the independence of the United States from Britain. In the document, he states all the harm that Britain has done to the colonists: socially, mentally, and economically. Jefferson just like the colonist wanted peace in their lives, and freedom from the tyranny of King George III. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson uses ethos, pathos, and logos in order to justify their reason of separation from Britain.

Most of the American society does not possess a basic knowledge of when the civil battle for women’s rights began. In the year 1848, the first convention of U.S. women’s rights was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a primary speaker and one of the women behind the organization of the convention. Stanton had many beliefs that at the time were unfathomable to many conservative people because it required a widespread change in how the country was run. E. Cady Stanton has put her name in history on all topics of human rights, in particular: being an abolitionist, suffragist, and what we refer to today as a feminist or equal rights activist. During the convention, her speech “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” called particular attention to equal rights for women in a country that inaccurately prides itself on freedom. Stanton’s work on equal rights opens with allusion to the “Declaration of Independence” and appeal to morals and ethos, leading to a section formed around anaphora and appeal to pathos, and then concluding her speech on appeal to logos, pathos, divine morals, and ethos.

The election of Barack Obama as the 56th president of the United States raised many hopes that the “Black struggles” was finally over. For conservatives, Obama victory reassured their beliefs that there was no longer such thing as racism and that every American had equal rights and opportunity to pursue the American dream. While many people have come to believe that all races have equal rights in America, Tim Wise argues in his documentary “White Like Me” that not only does racism and unconscious racial bias still exist, but that also White Americans are unable to simply relate to the variety of forms racism and inequality Blacks experience. This is mainly because of the privileges they get as the “default.” While Wise explores the variety forms of racism and inequality today such as unconscious racism, Black poverty, unemployment, inadequate education system, and prison system, the articles by the New York Times Editorial Board, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Adam Liptak further explore some the disparities in the criminal justice system. Ana Swanson points out in her article, “The Stubborn Persistence of Black-White Inequality, 50 Years after Selma” that while the “U.S. has made big strides towards equal rights,” significant gaps still remains between the two races. With the Supreme Court striking down a “portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement,” civil

Published by the New York Times under the Opinion section, the audience for this article is any interested reader. At the time it was released, November 18th, 2016, this article arrived during last year’s elections, in which a large, but surprising number of Americans voted for candidate Donald Trump, shocking many forecasters who had predicted otherwise. Therefore, after the election, many people may have been researching the demographics of the election, and this article, which briefly shared Brooks’ opinion on the nature of the election and how viewing others through the lens of a dominant identity influenced how the votes fell where they did, may have caught a keen reader’s eye. Also, this article came at a time where racism and prejudice caused many problems, leading some to view others as one-dimensional, represented only by a skin color or religion. Since prejudice and hate is still a large issue today, tackling this problem helps make this article relevant, nearly a year after its release.

In a land where we are not created as equals; aid, education, justice, and opportunity for the masses of minorities is not evenly distributed throughout society. The only institution minorities have better access to than their white counterparts are, in fact, the penal system. In the ongoing struggle for equal rights, equality continues to elude the those who fight and those who do nothing as the institutions redistrict neighborhoods in an attempt to control another institution; the electoral college, to control yet another institution; the executive branch. New York State Senator William L. Marcy coined a phrase in 1828 “To the victor belongs the spoils”.

Thomas Paine, a revolutionary, intellectual, and supporter of American independence from England published a book titled, “Rights of Man” which deals with the government shielding the natural rights of its people. Initially, the book captures the diverse aspect of this nation, but it fails to reveal the struggles that arise to preserve and adapt to such a society. Paine expresses his optimism towards the supposed perfection of American society, as one “made up...of people from different nations,” with certain expectations. Additionally, the time gap between “Rights of Man” and modern America cannot be neglected. Paine wrote during an era in which “constructing a government on the principles of society and the rights of man” was the essential objective of the country. However, modern-day America experiences opposite ideals and Paine’s theory no longer remains true because of the educational gap between the rich and poor, terrorism, and racial profiling.