I believe that both authors both very constructively used
all three appeals, logic, emotion, and also authorial character. In the
article, ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King starts off using authorial
character by stating how he is the president if the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference then goes into the significance of the group. He then moves into
using more so logical appeals by begging to state things like how a lot of the
thing Hitler did was “illegal” by bringing up the fact that it was “illegal” to
aid & comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. He then slowly but surely moves
into the more emotional appeal by trying to use the fact that certain
principles dear to Christian faith are suppressed. This catches the emotional
attention of Christians especially, because it threatens their beliefs,
something that they love. In the article, “Nonviolence as Compliance”, he takes
on more of role of using emotional appeals. One instance he does this is
stating what happened to Freddie Gray, a man who was “mysteriously” killed while
in police custody. He also does this by then stating multiple others who were
also victims of police brutality such as Jerriel Lyles who was assaults, or Venus
Brown, even Starr Brown. He then also begins to use a logical standpoint where
he says that in the past four year over 100 people have one court judgments related
to allegation of brutality and civil right allegations and given a settlement.
In most cases the charges on the victim are dismissed. I think he uses sort an
overall appeal of likability due to the fact that article predominantly faces
the problems of the African- American community, so I’m sure this was a huge interest
to all African- Americans. I know it was for me, especially being the fact that
my cousin was killed back in 2015 due to excessive force of a police officer.
The police officer shot him 6 time, hitting him in three places, his calf, his
rib cage, and the one that killed him, his head. The officer decides he was
going to shoot a him instead of doing what he was trained to do, which is use
his tazer. When an officer is trained to shot, he is trained to kill. Til this
day we have gotten no justice, and the officer was placed on temporary leave.
I feel that the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martian Luther King, Jr. is the strongest appeal. This letter has an authoritative appeal and emotional appeal. Not only is he Martin Luther King, he is an activist, well known leader and as he states in the reading the “president of the Southern Christian Conference” which gives him a majority role. Having a majority roles makes people prone to listen to you. He is also appealing emotionally by him stating the broken promises made by leaders of Birmingham’s economic community. He states the inequality of his people and how fighting back doesn’t do much for anything. No one is helping the suppression and that pulls the heart stings for Americans. In the “Nonviolence as Compliance” the author’s authority is the fact that he is an author in “The Atlantic” newspaper. Other than that, he doesn’t state anything about himself. But he does appeal emotionally to the audience. He talks about the death and abuse of innocent people by the police. The police are supposed to protect and when they are the ones killing, its makes an emotional and uncomfortable. He appeals emotionally to get people to fight back, these people are not being but in jail for their crimes.
ReplyDeleteIn the Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” he used authorial character in order to appeal to the reader. He stated that "I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights”. This statement alone right off the back in the beginning establishes his position, which I think was a very effective approach. The reader is able to understand his background, which in turn makes him seem more credible. “Nonviolence as Compliance” actually really doesn’t use this technique. In fact, it has a more emotional appeal to it. The author is from Baltimore, so he is able to relate to the killing of Freddie Gray, as well as the community. I feel that this emotional appeal is the most effective. Although Dr. King states his position and relevance, this article connects to the reader emotionally. We all can put ourselves in the author’s shoes. If something were to happen in our hometown, we’d feel connected, and like the author, we also would probably be able to share similar experiences.
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