Rhetoric Techniques Used In Barack Obama's Speech

Barack Obama was born in 1961 at Hawaii, his parents he described as a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. Obama studied to become a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago and eventually the state legislator. In the year 2004, Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, and in 2008 he was elected to be president of the United States being the first African American to ever hold office. Obama makes this speech so powerful by using the rhetoric tools ethos, logos, and pathos. Even though each appeal is each effective alone, they all also work together to make a better argument that is able to influence the audience. Ethos is a rhetoric tool that is used to establish character, the way the speaker’s character appears to the audience, in order to make it really effective the speaker needs to present their self in a way to make the audience

Logos gives the speaker the power to make logical arguments and to persuade the audience. Using logos Obama is able to take the subject of race to make an effective and reasonable solution for its problems in America presenting it in a neutral way. In his speech Obama states “This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years” (467). Obama is implying that both sides of the arguments surrounding race have equal power. Obama refusing to take sides to the solution that he puts forward is considered to be a logical statement because there are no preferences to weaken the argument. Obamas solution that he proposes is seen as a logical statement because there isn’t any biases to weaken its argument. His solution is unity stating, “But I have asserted a firm conviction—a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people—that working together we can move beyond some of our racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union”