The use of one of the rhetorical appeals; ethos, pathos, and logos, can help influence the intended audience. In the book Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger and the podcast “The Problem We All Live With” narrated by Nikole H. Jones, both effectively use logos to discuss racial tension. Both argue that blacks are not the sole reason that causes agitation between the two races, but the combination of both blacks and whites who need to learn to work together in order to live in a non-racial environment. Bissinger and Jones create a serious tone by providing factual numbers to support their reasonings. Bissinger highlights the blacks in his novel as simple minded football players who are only useful on the field with the use of logos. He describes …show more content…
This number clarifies blacks are only seen as athletes and not student-athletes compared to their white classmates. The football field is the only area in the school where black and whites are looked at similarly and not treated as irrelevant second class students. While “The Problem We All Live With” applies logos to set a background knowledge for desegregation in the past. Jones begins her subject matter to demonstrate the idea of desegregation had not previously worked. She creates an objective tone to help strengthen her argument. Jones analyzes that reading test scores of blacks were 39 points lower than whites in 1971, but “dropped to just 18 points by 1988 at the height of desegregation” (Jones). This justifies the idea of desegregation, it does work. In the school district of Francis Howell, where the parents of the white children are freaking out with the busing of blacks from a non accredited school district of Normandy, it is a common trend to create speculation. It is only a logical assumption to think the blacks will bring down a mainly white school’s credibility since “in 11 of 13 measures, the district didn't earn a single …show more content…
Teachers play an enormous role in a student's life. In Friday Night Lights, teachers began to feel no motivation to teach their classes anymore. This lead to a major drop in SAT scores in Permian High School, not even reaching the a 900 score in 1989. Several teaches blamed “the drop in academic performance to the effects of court-ordered desegregation” (Bissinger 131). Whites find it easier to blame it on the blacks and not take any blame for themselves. Similar in “The Problem We All Live With,” the teachers in the failing school district of Normandy, are least experienced and least qualified than those in mainly white schools. Normandy, and all other majority black schools in 2014 “get the worst course offerings, the least access to AP and upper level courses, the worst facilities” (Jones). This suggests if more whites were mixed in with blacks, each would have an equal chance at education. Between the two, Jones creates a more successful case on the topic, racial tension. Because “The Problem We All Live With” emphasizes how history is repeating itself in Missouri, she provides not only logical statistics, but outside accounts of personal experiences as to why desegregation has a high chance of not working. The numbers have been proven in both that black students have fluctuated a school’s test scores, but “The Problem We All Live With” shows the impact on a greater scale, compared to a high school