TED Talk by Brittany Packnett

TED Talk by Brittany Packnett

The topic of the TED Talk by Brittany Packnett Cunningham is confidence. The activist, writer, and educator argue that courage is a character that one must have to be successful. She describes it as the steering wheel of justice and as a guide in solving challenges in society; she describes it as an ignition point in the journey to success. She describes confidence as a step by step guide in the process of accomplishing set goals. She also argues that with confidence, an individual has the certainty to excel in events, not just the ordinary hope to perform well.

The purpose of the TED Talk is to challenge society to be responsible for building the confidence of its members in various ways. The speaker encourages the community, that is, the audience, to provide a friendly platform for everyone to be confident without being choosy and giving preference to specific individuals. It appeals to society to acts as the source of motivation for individuals who need to build this trait to change their world and their environment as well.

The target audiences of the speaker are teens, especially those who face discrimination in society due to their physical appearances or races. She targets the youths who are struggling to rise amidst challenges such as financial constraints and real bias in the community. The target audience is of great concern because these individuals need inspiration and constant reminders that they can. They need some assurance that they are having the community’s back up that however difficult it is, they will finally realize their dreams.

The context of TED talk states that confidence requires permission, community, and curiosity to accomplish. The approval makes individuals realize the need to be confident; the society provides the platform to showcase the skill while interest gives room for learning from one’s own mistakes. The audience should take into consideration the historical cases of racism mostly experienced by black Americans and Asian Americans. These individuals confidently stood up and took chances to fight for their rights until they were given equal opportunities as citizens of the USA.

The speaker uses two rhetorical situations to appeal to the emotions of her audience. The classroom was representing the community to nurture confidence for Jamal and Regina. She created a conducive environment for Jamal to do research and write a stump speech for any of the elected candidates their 2008 mock presidential election. Jamal used the freedom to express his opinion by choosing the candidate according to his father’s career. He writes the stump speech with the best description he had experienced through his dad. This environment is persuasive to Jamal and helps him to build his confidence through the most straightforward criteria. The speaker, on the other hand, corrects Regina in such a way that the spirit she had got scattered, and she felt crashed. The speaker feels sorry for this act because she might have killed the confidence that Regina took most of her life building. The emotional appeals let the message sink in a better way. It allows the audience to internalize the message emotionally.

The speaker uses the Team Lioness of Maasai community in Kenya which is a team of eight young women-rangers. Purity, the youngest among them, confesses that she relies on her fellow members for confidence that she will catch the poachers and chase lions as well as defeating the male rangers. This evidence is a perfect example of reliance on the community; for Purity’s case, the sisterhood community was the root of her confidence, and they made her believe that amidst challenges, she could win with them. It is a piece of credible evidence because trust builds a team, which is the society we live in, ranging from the family to various groups such as the rangers. And the fact that they were young and brave motivates. However, the speaker needs to talk about confidence for individuals with very low self-esteem and those with bruised egos in the society like Regina, especially how to make them rise from hopelessness.

The speaker introduces her topic with a compelling story of the book, “I Dream A World,” which was on the coffee table in a captivating living room. She creates a perfect picture of an organized living room that she could mess up to reach out for her book of confidence. This action describes how far she could go against her mother to model her faith. She then describes the image and posture Septima Clark, the writer of the book, which spoke confidence to her. She finalizes the talk with a summary and a call to action by the community. She confidently and strongly supports that confidence can solve any challenge in society. Confidence builds a culture with equity without discrimination according to gender, color, or age.

Reference

https://www.ted.com/session/new?context=ted.www%2Fwatch-later