First Blog Post on Rhetorical Analysis and Style
Race is a hard topic to discuss as it is one of the most controversial topics of all time. While Aronson is very stylistic and uses many rhetorical strategies to relay his common message about race, his biggest stylistic choice is relating race back to when it first started and using personal experiences. The beginning of the introduction brings up the idea of prejudice. The author establishes their credibility when they speak upon an issue that occurred when he and his son were waiting in line to buy ice cream and a drink. A group of young black men were huddled around the counter where your orders would be taken. They were having a good time and laughing but soon the issue began. The person taking the orders had accused one of the boys of taking money out of the tip jar. The author explains that he was sure the young man stole the money out of the tip jar because teenagers in a group take the money and he says he did when he was younger. Then he says something very interesting.
"But my conviction that he was guilty did not come because he was about the same age as I was when I grabbed a drink from a grocery store and strolled out. I felt angry with him right away. Hard as it is to admit, I believed he was guilty because he was black" (Aronson 1).
This is a personal experience that the author begins with to speak on how he was prejudice and begin to establish his credibility.
Aronson does a good job staying focused on a specific topic by using subheadings which is another stylistic choice and a way of setting up each chapter. He also relates our pastime to the ongoing issues of today. Aronson starts out by stating what racism is, categories that people are placed in due to their skin color. He then shifts to how the Jews and other groups were discriminated against to relate a separate issue that is related to the issue of racism. While racism is discrimination due to skin color, he also brings up the idea that people were also discriminated against for religion. When he consistently relates race back to the past time, it creates a sense of his credibility in a larger scheme.
"Blackness was associated with sin in the medieval mind, and dark skin suggested these were particularly demonic people" (Aronson 74).
This is only one specific example of how the author relates the past to the issue of slavery. He continues establishing his credibility by using known doctors who had done countless hours of research on this issue.
The main appeals that Aronson uses are ethos and logos. He uses all of the past issues to create a logical argument on the roots of slavery and racism as well as uses issues that are similar to racism in order to make a better argument. In addition to that, he uses research from many people to support his argument which establishes some credibility. By adding personal experiences it strengthens his credibility on a larger scale. While Aronson does not directly appeal to pathos, the topic is already emotional and many of the facts used are surprising and shows the depth in which our world struggles when dealing with racism and discrimination.
"But my conviction that he was guilty did not come because he was about the same age as I was when I grabbed a drink from a grocery store and strolled out. I felt angry with him right away. Hard as it is to admit, I believed he was guilty because he was black" (Aronson 1).
This is a personal experience that the author begins with to speak on how he was prejudice and begin to establish his credibility.
Aronson does a good job staying focused on a specific topic by using subheadings which is another stylistic choice and a way of setting up each chapter. He also relates our pastime to the ongoing issues of today. Aronson starts out by stating what racism is, categories that people are placed in due to their skin color. He then shifts to how the Jews and other groups were discriminated against to relate a separate issue that is related to the issue of racism. While racism is discrimination due to skin color, he also brings up the idea that people were also discriminated against for religion. When he consistently relates race back to the past time, it creates a sense of his credibility in a larger scheme.
"Blackness was associated with sin in the medieval mind, and dark skin suggested these were particularly demonic people" (Aronson 74).
This is only one specific example of how the author relates the past to the issue of slavery. He continues establishing his credibility by using known doctors who had done countless hours of research on this issue.
The main appeals that Aronson uses are ethos and logos. He uses all of the past issues to create a logical argument on the roots of slavery and racism as well as uses issues that are similar to racism in order to make a better argument. In addition to that, he uses research from many people to support his argument which establishes some credibility. By adding personal experiences it strengthens his credibility on a larger scale. While Aronson does not directly appeal to pathos, the topic is already emotional and many of the facts used are surprising and shows the depth in which our world struggles when dealing with racism and discrimination.
Work Cited
Aronson, Marc. Race: A History Beyond Black and White. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2007.
The way Aronson seems to presenting his arguments in Race seems to be really effective. Just like we talked about in class, I think using personal anecdotes can be a very powerful literary tool - especially when talking about race, an idea that everyone has a different definition for. However,
ReplyDeletein my opinion, logos and ethos shouldn't really have big rhetorical roles in these emotional/controversial kinds of topics. Like in mathematics, the way a logos argument works is by establishing simple axioms and extending logical statements from there. But with a complicated topic like race, we can't be sure what we can even agree these conclusions. Overall, I liked your post, though I would have liked maybe a picture to contrast the pure black and white feel of the blog. As an ending note, (and we've talked about this before a bit) do you think Jews are a race or religion (you talked about this in the post a bit). And does it really matter that we make a distinction between the two?
Thank you for your comment. I think that the author uses ethos in order for us as readers to understand his reasoning behind discussing this topic. As for your question on if I think the Jews are a race or religion, I personally feel that it is a religion even though they do not always support a religion. This is because I feel that a religion is supporting something which in this case is having no god which is religious.
DeleteLogan, this is a great way to sum up the first part of your book! I noticed that you talked a lot about how people persecuted others based solely on the color of their skin. This also happens in my book because people are being assumed guilty before they can be proven otherwise and in the extreme case of my book, are sentenced to death. I also noticed that you talked about how in your book, the use of ethos and logos creates logos, which I think is funny because in other books, such as Gabe's, he mentions that pathos is mainly used which also creates credibility. In your book, you mentioned that many personal stories are used that create credibility for the author. Do you think that by using his own personal stories it creates more credibility than using another person's?
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work!
This book, specifically how the author establishes his credibility, reminded me of my book a lot. I noticed that both authors established credibility not only by personal experience, but also by addressing their connections (the "known doctors" in this case). I also found your first quote really interesting when the author himself admits that he is prejudice. I saw this as him humanizing himself and basically telling his audience "hey it's okay, I can be prejudice too." I also really like your spacing of commentary. I can understand what you're trying to say and follow along throughout the blog. As a whole, I really enjoyed reading!
ReplyDelete