A Grab Bag of Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Obama is nothing if not a good writer (and a good orator—dude wears many hats) so his speech was chock full of all these handy-dandy rhetorical devices.

He made a lot of references to America, to patriotism, and to patriotic ideologies in order to help people understand that racial issues are American issues—just like health care and education and whether apple pie or strawberry shortcake is the true American dessert.

Obama offered historical proof that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were designed to guarantee freedom and equality. And it sounds delightful on paper…but it didn't really pan out that way in practice.

Obama established his ethos, his authority, but using his own story to prove his point. As a young man with a white mother and a Black father, he experienced prejudice and discrimination. But he also overcame it. He held on to his belief that the United States was the best country in the world, and the only one that could have allowed a Black man to rise as a viable candidate for president. It's an American story, a tried and true example, and sharing his family tree added credibility to the point he was trying to make.

Obama wasn't afraid to speak about racial tension, and, as a Black man in America, he is totally qualified to do so. Plus, his experiences with his white grandmother, a woman who loved him fiercely while simultaneously falling victim to the danger of Black stereotypes, were used to incite an emotional reaction (or pathos).

Because—real talk—we all know people that have relied on the use of stereotypes. We all have weird uncles or dotty grandmothers who still rely on outdated stereotypes to make sense of the world…whether they're saying antiquated things about how women are better at cleaning the kitchen, that men are innately better drivers, or something way worse.

But ethos and pathos weren't the only arrows in Obama's rhetorical quiver. He also used logic and reason (logos, y'all) to provide a super strong argument. He diplomatically acknowledged white frustrations regarding race relations in our country, and then went on to say that getting angry at one another is super unproductive.

We need to figure out what is really causing all these problems, and why they've persisted for so long. No one can argue about the legacy of Jim Crow or the pitfalls of slavery, and employing that logic throughout "A More Perfect Union" gave Obama the perfect platform on which to propose his solution: we can't ignore racial inequality any longer.

Yeah: this speech was a loud, buzzing wake-up call.