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Booker T Washington Rhetorical Devices

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The speech by Booker T. Washington clearly brings out the point that African Americans have a role and great potential in advancing the South despite the conflict running between the two races. He called for cooperation for mutual benefit by asking the African Americans to comprehend the importance and acquiring industrial and agricultural skills rather than seeking political positions. Washington appeals to the white audience in the North for investment as well as support for the black community, stating that together, they will find business success and social harmony. The passage contains a number of textual features that strengthen its meaning and purpose. Washington uses a great deal of descriptive details to portray the Exposition as an important event in …show more content…

The repetition of "cast down your bucket" is important in underlining themes of self-reliance and making the most of the present opportunities. It resonates with his message, puts more emphasis on the immediacy and localization of action for African Americans, and uses a ship metaphor in search of water—its application, that is, how it stands for the idea that very often, solutions to one's predicament are very near, and there is no need to look elsewhere. This imagery really helps to make very practical the advice Washington offers. Describing the Exposition in terms of recognition of African American contribution is also vital, for it represents interracial cooperation, symbolizing progress and unity. Last but not least, the comparison between fingers and hand becomes important, as it underlines race cooperation in matters of essential economic and social activity while retaining different identities on social matters. This metaphor very powerfully conveys Washington's vision of unity in essential endeavors and respect for social

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Booker T. Washington demands that jobs in the south not be given to immigrants when the recently freed African Americans had already more than earned those jobs and had proved their loyalty to the south time and time again; the intended audience of this speech was, of course, the white men who controlled the southern

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Washington stresses “it is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top”. Cast your bucket into agriculture, mechanics, and other manual labor opportunities and learn to prosper. To his white audience, Washington uses the bucket analogy to encourage them not to recruit immigrants, but to “Cast down your bucket where you are” and hire from the eight million free blacks who have been loyally doing the work all along. By employing and also educating the black population, the economy will prosper for both races.

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Writing Activity #4 1. Explain what Washington meant by the phrase/metaphor "Cast down your bucket where you are..." What Washington meant by the phrase/metaphor “Cast down your bucket where you are”, is to encourage African Americans to utilize the resources available to them within their communities, rather than exclusively seeking outside assistance or opportunities. He believed that economic progress and the achievement of skills would lead to dignity, the respect of others, and eventually, racial unity in the United States. I believe Mr. Washington was advocating for African Americans to focus on improving their conditions through hard work, education, and self-sufficiency within their existing communities.

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Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

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681 Words | 3 Pages

Washington believed in working simple labor jobs and starting from the bottom and progressing up in order to gain the respect necessary to achieve racial equality, Du Bois believed in not submitting to lesser occupations and demanding racial equality. Washington says that the key to prosperity is through learning to dignify common labor. Whereas Du Bois states that “Becoming a gospel of work and money to such an extent as apparently almost completely overshadow the higher aims of life.” “Common Labor” is viewed by Washington as the only way to make progress toward a higher quality life, however, Du Bois views “common labor” as a social setback. Washington’s views can be summed up, almost completely, in the following quote “It is at the bottom of life we must begin, not the top.”

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The first metaphor is about a ship in need of water but the sailors don’t realize that they are standing in fresh water and need to cast down their buckets. The term “cast down your buckets where ever you are” Washington uses it to suggest that both the whites and blacks must compromise with each other. However, based on his perspective, the blacks must cast down their buckets in manual labor and not achieve for greater professions. While the whites only have to allow the free slaves to live among them in peace. Washington believes that the American Negro after being enslave for so long needs to earn the whites trust, and the only way to achieve that is by starting from the

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However Booker T. Washington believed in having a more skillful education, consisting of learning how to trade, mastering agriculture skills and more things one would need to get a job. However, W.E.B DuBois also put many efforts to achieve equal rights towards African Americans which Booker T Washington put on hold. Booker T Washington’s plan was to make it so that “Blacks would [have to] accept segregation and discrimination but their eventual acquisition of wealth and culture would gradually win for them the respect and acceptance of whites”. This vision that Booker T Washington had “practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro race”. W.E.B commented on this process saying it was an attempt, “to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings.”

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Rhetorical devices have been used for writing for a long time. They help the author prove their point or persuade the reader to side with them. Examples of rhetorical in the passages are, analogy, repetition, and persuasion. W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington have two very different point of views on how African Americans should advance after they’ve been freed. Booker.

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After centuries of breathing in oppressive, racist filled smog, Washington’s philosophy would help ease the transition from slavery to freedom for African Americans as well as the white society. A founding member of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois believed that

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Washington believed that collaboration was key to creating a more inclusive society for both races. Instead of getting African-Americans to the position of the whites, their contribution to the economy is enough for the whites to acknowledge their success. With one-third of the population being African-Americans, Washington points out that the one-third could either could add to the “crime and ignorance” or the “intelligence and progress” of the South. This meaning that through a collective effort, the success of the South would be furthered. “Cast down your bucket among these people who have helped make possible of this magnificent representation of the progress of the South.”

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846 Words | 4 Pages

This is done by Washington basically claiming that though the black people can't accomplish much now, they will be able to. He is focused on white support instead of total equality. He makes it seem that the black community can't prosper while being treated equally economically because they have only recently been on their own and aren't capable of keeping up with the white men who have been free to work for

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These two individuals have varying views on the education of black Americans. Booker T Washington took the view that proper higher education made for the betterment of the black community. He believed that taking pride in one’s race and becoming responsible citizens is what would help the black Americans against the racial discrimination they received. He also helped to create black higher education. The main difference between these two arguments is that one focused on education while the other focused more on social action.

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771 Words | 4 Pages

As claimed by Booker T. Washington, “keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful” (Paragraph 2). The African American people will and over time work to get to the top, and that they will prove to the white man that they do belong whether success of the field or in the new world they have finally allowed to be successful in. In this paragraph Mr. Washington uses a emotional point and turned it into motivation for Africans to work hard and try their best no matter what lay ahead. “It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities” (Paragraph

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E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington debated whether to confront or appease racist attitudes in the United States. As segregation regimes took hold in the South in the 1890s with the tacit approval of the rest of the country, many African Americans found a champion in Booker T. Washington and adopted his self-help autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901), as their guide book to improve fortunes. Washington portrayed his own life in such a way as to suggest that even the most disadvantaged of black people could attain dignity and prosperity in the South by providing themselves valuable, productive members of society deserving of fair and equal treatment before the law. A classic American success story, Up from Slavery solidified Washington’s reputation as the most eminent African American of the new century. Yet Washington’s primacy was soon challenged.

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