How Does Malcolm X Use Ethos In Who Taught You To Hate Yourself

In response to the issue of racial discrimination toward African Americans in the United States, Malcolm X delivers his passionate speech, “Who Taught You to Hate Yourself”, to achieve the purpose of motivating African Americans to fight with the white Americans for their freedom like how the white Americans have treated them. Malcolm X first appeals to ethos to make a stronger connection between the audiences and himself in this speech. He uses personal pronoun multiple times to show that he has the shared value with the audiences, building his credibility to convince the audience to give him trust and support. For instance, when he is saying that “we don’t steal, we don’t gamble, we don’t lie and we don’t cheat”, he includes himself as part of the African American community

Malcolm X also appeals to pathos to advocate the audiences to fight against the white Americans. By asking questions with the same syntax “who taught you to hate” in the beginning of the speech, Malcolm X naturally brings out the answer to these questions, making the audiences realize that white Americans are people who taught them to hate everything about themselves based on no reasons. He presents these series of questions with a passionate tone and vivid hand motion, invoking the audiences’ anger about the unreasonable discrimination they receive from the society. Pathos allows Malcolm X to trigger the audiences’ emotions that can eventually motivate them to fight back instead of just being satisfying with the non-violent protest that he viewed as useless. Besides appealing to ethos and pathos, Malcolm X also persuade the audiences thorough