Coates’ Use of Rhetoric

Coates’ Use of Rhetoric

Introduction

Coates writes his teenage son the letter Between the World and Me explaining to him the hardships a black man faces while living in the United States. He discusses the challenges he faced as a young man and how he fears his son will experience the same, and he won’t be able to protect him. Coates talks about five themes: the Mecca, the dream, the body, racism is real and fear. He explains how he faced brutality from policemen and how it changed his perception of the legal system and how black people suffer racial discrimination in the hands of white Americans. He is convinced that discrimination of black people is engraved in American society. Coates uses ethos, pathos, and logos all through the book. This paper will conduct a rhetorical analysis of Coates on how he uses the three rhetoric to reveal how African Americans suffer under the white supremacy.

Ethos

Ethos is a type of rhetoric where the author convinces his audience of his credibility and character. Coates is seen trying to convince the audience that he is worth being listening to. in his writing. He states how he was admitted to Howard University and how the Mecca shaped and formed him (Coates, p. 40). In Howard, he received higher education but also viewed it as the Mecca, unifying body that unified and increased knowledge for all African Americans. While at Howard University, he learned a lot of things about society, which shaped him into the man he is today. I believe Coates tries to convince the reader that he is learned and, therefore, literate. He demonstrates his love for books, which empowered him. He states that when he joined Howard, he read chancellor William’s Destruction of Black Civilization. He states that the theory of multi-Millenial European Plunder gave him answers to questions that had previously bothered him. He also read about Queen Nzinga, Children of the sun, and the African Origin of Civilization. Coates proceeds to state that it reached a point, and he needed more books that he visited the Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.

Coates increases his credibility by showing his reading style and how reading improved his vocabularies.  He states that I would open the books and read while filling my composition books wit notes on my reading, new vocabularies, and sentences of my own inventions.”  He then goes ahead to state the  I would arrive in the morning and request three call slips, the work of every writer: Larry Neal, Eric Williams, George Padmore…” he ensures to list many writers whom he has gathered information from. By showing that he is learned, the manages to convince the readers that he is a knowledgeable person whose work is not only based on his opinion but also based on different books. However, this might not increase his credibility to the reader because many readers are more inclined to skip over the names.

Pathos

Pathos is a type of rhetoric that is based on emotions. The author tries to persuade his audience by capturing their emotions. Coates uses pathos throughout the letter. He uses emotion striking adjectives and occurrences that help the reader connect to the letter on a personal and emotional level. This emotional connection causes the reader to yearn more of the story, and he dives deeper into the book. A perfect example is his topic of police brutality towards Prince Jones. Coates describes to us how he found out about Jones’s death. he states that “His face was lean, brown and beautiful, and across that face, I saw the open, easy smile of Prince Carmen Jones.” The way he describes prince Jones prompts the reader to imagine how beautiful Jones was and then relates to how brutally he was shot by the police.

Coates proceeds to state that he asked the girl with the long dreads if prince news were the truth, but she just screamed in shock. He felt rage towards the streets of West Baltimore. He overwhelms the reader with emotions by sharing his emotions. Coates states that Prince Jones was a one on one and they had destroyed his body, scorched his shoulders and arms, and ripped his back, mangled lung, kidney, and liver.” This statement is very deep as it portrays how ruthless Prince Jones was murdered by the police. He continues to stir resentment in the author towards the white policeman and his society.

Coates also uses his personal experience to lure the reader to his side. That is, his words cause the reader to sympathize with him and, in the process, persuades him to see this from his perspective. Coal reveals that as a young boy, he had to wake up every morning knowing that every promise can be broken; even waking up was not guaranteed for an African American. One was stuck between struggling and hoping for a better tomorrow. He makes the reader wish he could help him when he mentions the struggle he has to persevere. He also states that he ought to live his life like it is his last. He states that being a black American meant that you had to be twice as good as the white Americans. One hard to be alert at all times in order to keep safe. The states that, “to be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape and disease.” He makes the reader sympathize with him that he had to deal with such torture at such as early age. Pathos is widely and most effectively used rhetoric and engages the reader all through the book.

Logos

Coates uses logos in his letter, as well. Logos is a type of rhetoric that is based on logic. Logic is seen when Coates states that “life should be better and richer for everyone with the opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” Coates feels that it is not logical that the Americana have to depend on the African Americans to build the American dream and yet deprive the black Americans of the privilege to enjoy the dream as well. He also uses logic when he talks about the body. The body is something everyone should be able to control because it is personal. Therefore it does not make sense that Coates should suffer brutality from society without legal reasoning. He should not be enslaved and denied his natural rights. Using logic, he gets the reader to reasons with him.

Conclusion

Coates uses pathos, ethos, and logos in his book to persuade his audience to understand white supremacy and the struggles of black Americans from his perspective. However, he uses pathos more successfully than logos and ethos. Through pathos, he is able to share the emotional experiences a black American goes through and unveil the white supremacy and its hatred for the black society.