In Barack Obama’s “Remarks to National Association for the Advancement of Colored People” speech given in the city where the association was formed, he explains the struggles colored citizens face because of discrimination and inequality. He emphasizes the need for Americans to change their attitude and create a more efficient mindset in order to overcome the unfair treatment received between all races. In Barack Obama’s NAACP speech, he organizes his speech into sections while using statistics and evidence to address and further advance the predicament of racial inequality in America’s education system, community, and families. Through the use of evidence, Barack Obama explains how there is a monumental amount of racial inequality within …show more content…
Barack Obama starts of his speech by discussing the dilemma within America’s education and then in America’s community and how we can change the problem. Barack Obama states, “But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.” Barack Obama uses facts to make the audience fell a sense of sympathy. The examples Obama gives clarifies the discrimination for each race listed. However, not only does he uses evidence, Barack Obama also uses statistics to further support his argument. In lines 152-157 he explicates the difference between each races by saying, “ We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that.” He …show more content…
He explains this by saying, “ But all these innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children.” Obama talks about the need for the family to do their part because the programs will not do it themselves. He wants the audience to put forth the proper effort. He then goes on to discuss how parents need to guide, support and punish their children so they can strive to be the best. He says, “ To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework.” Obama emphasizes the need for parents to support there children for them to excel. However, he also explains that we need to se boundaries for them as
In the speech, “America’s Schoolchildren”, President Barack Obama uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in an effective manner to support his claim that every student should have an active role in the responsibility of their education. First and foremost, President Obama begins his speech with an anecdote from his life, “I get it. I know what it’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us the things that other kids had” (Obama 72). In his statement, he give us a personal story from when he lived in Indonesia, that he too went through hardships of having his father leave his family when he was two, not always
The middle part can be divided into two parts, in the first he explains the responsibility they have to themselves, to find out what they are good at and what they have to offer by taking an education. He says that maybe some of the students could be a writer, innovator, inventor, senator og a supreme court justice someday, but that they might never know if they do not take an education. He argues this by explaining that these jobs can't be achieved without going to school, doing your homework and taking an education. By saying this he creates dreams and goals for the students, and offers them a simple way to reach these dreams. When he says this he also uses ethos and makes sure that no one feels less worth than others, everyone is equal and they all have the same possibilities. In the second part he goes more into why being responsible and taking an education is not only important in their own lives, but that their choices will affect the whole country and it's future; ”And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine wether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future”4. A huge problem for students today is for them to see the relevance of the things they learn in school but Obama
Though slavery was arguably abolished, “for thousands of blacks, the badge of slavery [lives] on” (Alexander 141). Many young black men today face similar discrimination as a black man in the Jim Crow era - in housing, employment, public benefits, and so-called constitutional rights. This discrimination characterizes itself on a basis of a person’s criminal record, making it perfectly legal. As Alexander suggests, “This is the new normal, the new racial equilibrium” (Alexander, 181).
Through capturing these events and images in the minds of his audience, Obama writes, “Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world” (14). Obama’s references of biblical and historical events which are known today from history as powerful stories of difficulty and perseverance is used to describe the struggles of racial inequality. As racial inequality itself is a huge problem which creates separation between races even till today, Obama’s allusion to these events match well with putting into perspective
Although our school system is in need of change, the film did not consider the part parental involvement plays in education, a drawback of the film. Education spending in our country has more than doubled in recent decades, but children in most states have proficiency rates of only 20 or 30 percent in math and reading (Weber 6). One must wonder if, with all of this extra spending and consistently low test scores, the problem goes beyond the school system and into American families. After all, even with small class sizes, the amount of one-on-one attention is limited for each student. Isn’t it up to parents to push their children to succeed? Amy Chua, author of the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother uses an almost militant form of parenting which – though highly controversial – demands nothing short of excellence from her children. While other children were allowed to ride their bikes or play video games with their friends, Chua demanded that her seven-year-old daughter practice t...
Obama wants to invest within our schools and communities because the children of the union are the future in which we, the United States, depend upon. Investing in our schools and communities will make them successful, building them equally to form one union for all Americans. Discrimination is the main reason for inequality in America; solving the problem of discrimination, by addressing and changing the mindset of racial superiority, will dissolve the problem of Inequality. Poverty in the United States is a result of the inequality between races in America throughout the past. The present African American race has a 27.4% poverty rating mostly due to their hardships of slavery and racial inequality throughout their generations. Obama wants all Americans to realize that our dreams do not have to come at the expense of other’s dreams, together we can make this a more perfect
parents mean well; they are trying steer their sons and daughters towards a secure future.” The
Throughout the past one hundred and fifty years, race relations have progressed markedly, emanating from the demise of legalized slavery and segregation in America. African Americans today have many rights that their ancestors were denied, such as the right to vote, being paid for their work, and being allowed to use the same restrooms and drinking fountains as white people. However, despite the many strides we have taken toward racial inequality as a country, there are still many ways in which African Americans and other minorities are unfairly treated today. For all the civil rights breakthroughs of the past several decades, racial adversity still materializes through numerous and often times far more insidious methods. It pervades in nearly
Darrius Jackson Cavasoa English 101 July 2016 If anyone were to understand what it’s like to go through the difficulties of racial discrimination and the hardships of being colored; it’d be non other than Mr. President Barack Obama himself. Despite being the first African American in history to be elected President of the United States, Obama had his fair share of being discriminated against throughout his long journey to office. On March 18, 2008, Obama delivered the speech “A More Perfect Union” at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In his speech, he responded to the criticisms of his relationship with his Pastor whom was said to have been making inflammatory statements about the U.S government and race relations
When Barack Obama ran for presidency, there were a lot of questions about his race, color, and whether he was born in the U.S.. The comments from his pastor Jeremiah Wright put him in an awkward situation, so he decided to give this speech to prove the point that we are all the same and live in the same country, so there shouldn’t be any discrimination among anyone. In his speech, Obama uses rhetorical devices to explain how race discrimination is affecting our country and us in every way possible. The use of rhetorical devices in this speech has strong effects on the audience. The use of allusion, symbolism, optimistic tone, and repetition of words gives the speech a strong argumentative tone. He argues the fact that to be able to achieve such big goals and how out country was supposed to be from the beginning, we need to stay united and rely on younger
Over the past four-hundred plus years, racism has plagued the history of American society. The idea that one person is inherently better than another because of the color of their skin has always been present from our founding to today. During the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the mid 1900’s, racism was repeatedly being dealt blows by those brave enough to stand up for the rights they felt belonged to citizens of all shapes and colors. One important event that led to progress for people of color was the desegregation of the schooling systems. From young girls walking into all-white schools to black men being selected to participate in different academies, the Civil Rights movement to desegregate schools was influential in how progress
We all know what discrimination is, but most of us, don’t know how it feels to be discriminated against. It is usually not until we go through something like discrimination that we begin to see what negativity exists. African-American people have had to climb over many obstacles to gain their standing today. First they were sold into slavery, but after slavery was abolished they still had to deal with racism and discrimination, both of which still exist. For my English essay, I am interviewing my neighbor, who’s African-American.
There are a variety of thoughtful and interesting conversations about everything from resource allocation, to the impact of race on educational achievement, to the most effective uses of technology, to redefining education to meet the needs of the 21st century – topical and relevant discussions that never seem to include parents. Parents aren’t completely ignored, but more often than not, the role they play isn’t a substantive part of the discussion. Their involvement becomes a less than critical part of any proposed solution. I believe we can make the argument that a significant part of the solution to the educational challenges we face requires meaningful parent involvement, not just lip service.