How Does Obama Use Ethos In A More Perfect Union

“A More Perfect Union” is a speech given on March 18, 2008, by Barack Obama, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Barack Obama, a black man with an African father and an American mother, took the stage and delivered a speech that would paint the racial picture of the years to come from his presidency. His speech was over the racial inequality that is spreading throughout the United States, and to inform the issue raising from his long-time pastor, Jeremiah Wright, at the Trinity United Church of Christ about making inflammatory statements over the United States government and race relationships in America. Obama's speech opens up using personal and historical stories from his past to catch the audience's attention

The use of pathos or emotional appeal in Obama’s speech “A More Perfect Union”, is one of the crucial keys to making his essay so powerful to show the makeup of racial inequality in America. He states “That anger may not be expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find a voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table”(Obama 466). Obama uses this quote to better express the struggles that the black and other racial communities face in America. He also states this quote like he's seen the problems first hand, because he may be referring to himself or event that made him feel angered. He wants to use this appeal to really hit the audience with the sense of emotion and to place himself as a better character of racial inequality. He wants to show the audience that even a first-class politician such as himself also has this problem of racial inequality. He says “I would not be running for president if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country…..No one knows the key to racial equality, so why should a man only running for president tell us how to act”(Obama 469). This quote is a good use of pathos, to better explain how he is giving a lot of ideas on how to solve racial inequality, but he's not going to provide the answers for it just because he's a presidential candidate, and he doesn't have the rights to make himself to be the only one answering to