Rhetorical Analysis On Mass Incarceration

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America is called “The Land of the free”, but who is really free? America is called “The land of opportunity”, but who is really given an opportunity? It’s not the black and brown boys who have the odds stacked against them since the day they were born. Mass Incarceration is one of the tools designed to keep African Americans oppressed. African American boys are the ones who suffer the most. They are targeted at a young age and in result they stay in the revolving door of jail/prison. That is why I chose young African American boys (Ages 13-25) as my target audience. The conversations I have in my hybrid text are “the war on drugs” and private prisons. I wanted to have these conversations because they are systematic strategies used to control …show more content…

In order to get my message across I needed a balance of both. If I used too many statistics my audience would be turned off but if I only relied on emotions I wouldn’t have a strong argument. An example of pathos I used was the “13th” movie trailer. The video contained facts but the visual created an emotional feeling. Along with the visuals the song “Human” by Rag’n’Bone Man was playing in the background. There were images and videos of African Americans being enslaved, boycotting during the civil rights movement, and modern day incarceration. That alone creates a very emotional feeling. What drives it homes is the strong voice of Rag’n’Bone Man in the back singing “I’m only human”. I know these young African American boys feel like they are only human, so why are the being treated so differently? The trailer really makes you think in the end because it created all these strong feelings inside. Pathos allowed me to pull at the heartstrings, which I then hope would turn into positive action. An example of Logos I used was “White and black people use drugs at the same rate but blacks are incarcerated at a rate that is 10 times higher.” This was one of the statistics I chose because it showed that African American are not the super criminal that the system makes us out to be. I’m not justifying the drug use of these young kids but I showing them that you are more likely to go to jail compared to their white counterparts. Drug use is an issue across all races but they pick and choose who they want to criminalize. I used these statistics because I know the kids have little to no knowledge about it. These are not topics talked about in school so in my blog I wanted to educated

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