Analyzing “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates The past is the past, but sometimes the past comes back and bites us on the butt. In Ta-Nehisi Coates’s article, “The Case for Reparations”, Coates describes the wrongful acts done by white supremacists towards African-Americans. Throughout his article, Coates provides strong logos and pathos to his argument. The one issue that he fails to discuss is ethos or credibility towards his argument. In the use of rhetorical appeal, ethos was not affected in his article’s argument. In the article, “The Case for Reparation” describes the 250 years of unfair treatment towards the minority group, but the main issues Coates focuses on African-Americans not getting reparation for unfair and unruly …show more content…
Pathos is a rhetorical device used for providing emotion to the reader. He wants the reader to feel sympathetic towards the mistreatment of African-Americans. In the introduction, the first rhetorical device he introduced is pathos. Coates present pathos when he introduced Clyde Ross. He titles the first chapter as, “So that’s just one of my losses”. He displays the sad moments in Ross’s childhood. The loss of his red horse, his father’s land being cheated from him, and the lack of money to buy his suit for the church program. Coates, also explains how Ross was bought “on contract” like many black individuals or families, the reason they were unable to receive a loan is because of racial propaganda. Coates states, “the men who peddled contracts in North Lawndale would sell homes at inflated prices and then evict families who could not pay [. . .] Then they’d bring in another black family, rinse, and repeat”. Buying the property at a low price, then selling at a high rate to lower income black families just to gain profit. Another example Coates uses is a black family in a white neighborhood, who had a cross burned outside their front lawn. Coates used pathos very well in this article. He wants the reader to understand the hardships that were created for