Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Rhetorical Analysis Terms
A proposal for rhetorical analysis
Rhetorical Analysis Terms
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Brent Staples’ piece “Black Men and Public Space” first published in 1986 in a liberal feminist magazine “Ms.” An African American, Staples was often the victim of racial prejudice throughout his young-adulthood. The publication, mostly directed toward white, feminist, affluent women, was supposed to send a message about racial prejudice and empathy. Staples develops his purpose, that people should be empathetic toward African Americans, through self-blaming tone, imagery, and ethical appeal.
First, Staples uses a self-blaming tone to help his purpose. The piece opens with “My first victim was a white woman, well dressed, probably in her early twenties” (1). He goes on to say that he had his hands in his pockets, and was giving a comfortable
…show more content…
For example, the piece starts out explaining the circumstances of an encounter the author had with a woman on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a wealthy neighborhood in an “impoverished” section of Chicago. The author states “As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast a worried glance… After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street” (1). Through the usage of the anecdote, the author demonstrates the hostile attitude people had toward him, even though he didn’t do anything to make the woman feel uncomfortable, other than walking down the street behind her. In a similar fashion, the author mentions the confusion people have toward whether he will be trouble or not, stating the following as being the most terrifying for him: “One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken as a burglar. The office manager called security and, with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the labyrinthe halls, nearly to my editor’s door. I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of someone who knew me” (8). This anecdote describes the attitude the general public had toward the author. …show more content…
His purpose, that people should be more empathetic toward African Americans is assisted by pathetic appeals, imagery, and ethos
In his article “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space”, which first appeared in the women’s magazine Ms. Magazine and later Harpers, Brent Staples explores the discrimination he faced as a black man living in Chicago and New York. In writing this piece, Brent Staples hoped to use a combination of pathos and ethos to demonstrate to the women that read Ms. Harper’s that Staples is actually the victim when the women treat him the way they do and to get these women to view him, and other black men, differently and to make them realize that they are people too. Staples use of his ethos and pathos serve well to support his position and convince others to take a new perspective. Staples uses ethos in multiple ways
The author mainly appeales to pathos. She tells a story of a woman being stabbed while her neighbors look on and also, of a man, named Rodney King, who was beaten by a few police offices while ten other officers looked on. These are good examples for her argument but, she uses these infrequent instances to try and sway her audience into thinking that they are common occurrences.
To depict the unfair daily lives of African Americans, Martin Luther King begins with an allegory, a boy and a girl representing faultless African Americans in the nation. The readers are able to visualize and smell the vermin-infested apartment houses and the “stench” of garbage in a place where African American kids live. The stench and vermin infested houses metaphorically portray our nation being infested with social injustice. Even the roofs of the houses are “patched-up” of bandages that were placed repeatedly in order to cover a damage. However, these roofs are not fixed completely since America has been pushing racial equality aside as seen in the Plessy v. Ferguson court case in which it ruled that African Americans were “separate but equal”. Ever since the introduction of African Americans into the nation for slavery purposes, the society
The article “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples, originally published in Ms. Magazine in 1986, under the title “Just Walk on by,” depicts the existence of racism within the unconscious prejudice of people. The main idea of this article is the fact that blacks are perceived as a violent and disastrous people, and this, in turn, puts them in danger. Staples uses a detailed imagery to illustrate the stereotype of individuals based on black people. In the article, the author portrays the poignant events that black people face and uses pathos to describe his melancholy of people judging him by his skin color. He attracts the focus of audience towards the main idea of this article by using onomatopoeia as well as diction. The usage of such rhetorical strategy has successfully clarified the main idea of the article and widened the approach of this article towards public.
In Kiese Laymon “How to Slowly Kill yourselves and others in America” and Brent Staples “Black Men and Public Spaces” both essays deal with being an African American man but the authors respond in a different ways. At one point in history being an African American wasn’t always the easiest but two Authors shared their stories about the experiences they had which were very different. Although the color of their skin is the same and how they treated was as well both authors take different precaution’s to handle the situations they were in to persuade the audience on how to deal with the effects of racism. Both authors show their hidden message through the actions presented throughout the essays. Laymon`s casual tone and will to fight make him more relatable
Her description is full of emotional words and phrases which enable the reader to feel indignant about the case’s verdict-Nelson is convicted of vehicular homicide following the death of her son. Malchik emphasizes that “[T]he driver who had two previous hit-and-run convictions pleaded guilty,” but the mother who lost her son is forced to be jailed for a longer time. This part of description shapes a poor image of a mother who in order to feed her tired and hungry children, has no choice but to jaywalk. The author explains to the reader that Nelson chooses to jaywalk not because she is crazy, but because of her mother’s identity as well as lack of safer road for them. The purpose of the author is touching readers to sympathize with the mother, assuaging the mother’s guilt, and proving that walking should be human beings’ freedom and liberty. Adding to this idea are words and phrases such as, “instinctive,” “injustice,” “the narrowest,” “lost right,” “Orwellian fashion,” “more treacherous,” “laziness,” and “scorn” (Malchik). All of these emotional words are awkward for Americans. As the author indicates, “[T]he ability to walk is a struggle, a fight, a risk”, which can help to arouse readers’ awareness of protecting their lost opportunities and rights. Apart from these, at the end of the article, Malchik uses several imperative sentences like: “Open your door; go for a walk; feel the spring”, to strengthen the tone. It is also an effective way to attract readers and create strong emotional
In his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class” (1988), writer and middle-class black American, Shelby Steele adopts a concerned tone in order to argue that because of the social conflicts that arise pertaining to black heritage and middle class wealth, individuals that fit under both of these statuses are ostracized. Steele proposes that the solution to this ostracization is for people to individualize themselves, and to ‘“move beyond the victim-focused black identity” (611). Steele supports his assertion by using evidence from his own life and incorporating social patterns to his text. To reach his intended audience of middle-class, black people, Steele’s utilizes casual yet, imperative diction.
In the first two years of the Civil War the freedom for slaves, and increased participation amongst the blacks became a necessity. On January 1, 1863 when President Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation got signed, more than three million slaves were freed. After a couple years into the Civil war the North was in desperate need of some troops. This gave the recently freed slaves as non-American citizens interest to fight for the Union. One of the people responsible for the advancement of race equality and the main source of recruitment to the Union is Frederick Douglas. Frederick Douglas delivered a speech titled “Men of Color, To Arms” which strongly urged African Americans to join the war to finally coincide with the proclamation and get there
Although an effort is made in connecting with the blacks, the idea behind it is not in understanding the blacks and their culture but rather is an exploitative one. It had an adverse impact on the black community by degrading their esteem and status in the community. For many years, the political process also had been influenced by the same ideas and had ignored the black population in the political process (Belk, 1990). America loves appropriating black culture — even when black people themselves, at times, don’t receive much love from America.
Persuasion Throughout history there have been many struggles for freedom and equality. There was the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. There was the fight against government censorship in Argentina, spoken against by Luisa Valenzuela. And there was the struggle for women's equality in politics, aided by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
In his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class” (1988), writer and middle-class black American, Shelby Steele adopts a concerned tone in order to argue that because of the social conflicts that arise pertaining to black heritage and middle class wealth, individuals that fit under both of these statuses are ostracized. Steele proposes that the solution to this ostracization is for people to individualize themselves, and to ‘“move beyond the victim-focused black identity” (611). Steele supports his assertion by using evidence from his own life and incorporating social patterns to his text. To reach his intended audience of middle-class, black people, Steele’s utilizes casual yet, imperative diction.
In this narrative essay, Brent Staples provides a personal account of his experiences as a black man in modern society. “Black Men and Public Space” acts as a journey for the readers to follow as Staples discovers the many societal biases against him, simply because of his skin color. The essay begins when Staples was twenty-two years old, walking the streets of Chicago late in the evening, and a woman responds to his presence with fear. Being a larger black man, he learned that he would be stereotyped by others around him as a “mugger, rapist, or worse” (135).
Staples, Brent. “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space.” 50 Essays. Ed. Samuel Cohen.
In “Black Men in Public Spaces” the author talks about multiply situation where he was treated different for being an African American. Staples said,” I entered a jewelry store on the city’s affluent near North side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with an enormous red Doberman pinscher straining at the end of a leash” (161.) Then there is “Right Place, Wrong Face, which is focused on and African American man that is wrongly accused of a crime because of his race. White said, “I was searched, stripped of my backpack, put on my knees, handcuffed, and told to be quieted when I tried to ask questions” (229.) The two articles have many similarities. Both articles have two educated African America men who get treated different because of their race. Staples and White both have situations where they are being stereotyped by society because there black
In the short essay, “Black Men in Public Space” written by Brent Staples, discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidated in “public places” (Staples 225). Staples, an intelligent man that is a graduate student at University of Chicago. Due to his skin complexity, he is not treated fairly and always being discriminated against. On one of his usual nightly walks he encountered a white woman. She took a couple glances at him and soon began to walk faster and avoided him that night. He decided to change his appearance so others would not be frightened by his skin color. He changed the way he looked and walked. Staples dressed sophisticated to look more professional so no one would expect him to be a mugger. Whistling classical music was referred to the “cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country”(Staples 226). The cowbell is used to protect hikers from bears. But in Staples case, it was to not be stereotyped and show that he is harmless. The general purpose of Staples essay was to inform the readers that stereotypes could affect African Americans and any other races.