In July of 2022, the Philadelphia 76ers proposed what they thought was a great plan. The idea was to develop a new “state-of-the-art" arena in the heart of Philadelphia, just a block away from the local Chinatown. However, unfortunately for the Sixers, the idea wasn't perceived as they would have hoped, and it was met with lots of pushback. In this essay, I am going to analyze the rhetorical effectiveness of a petition from the Asian Pacific Islander Alliance website that opposes the development. The petition does an excellent job of catering to its rhetorical audience's emotions with elements of logos -- yet is unsuccessful in conveying elements of pathos and logos that would have made it convincing. In the beginning of the petition, we can see that the first stanza makes use of pathos – an emotional persuasion – by pointing out the different emotions felt by the people of the Chinatown community, which should be relatable to …show more content…
It states, “No matter what we look like, where we come from, or how we make a living, most of us want to live in strong and thriving neighborhoods – places where we can safely walk down the street...”. This reasoning is easy to agree on and extremely effective for setting up the rest of the petition to persuade with pathos. The next sentence even explicitly makes the connection for readers, saying that "for a lot of people, Philadelphia’s Chinatown is that neighborhood”. With this beginning, readers are encouraged to think through the viewpoint of a Chinatown community member as they continue to read the petition and be compassionate as morals which they hold are being compromised for others. After this first stanza, we as readers feel more related to the people of Chinatown, and the second stanza again uses pathos – this time making for an effective introduction of the protagonists and their intentions. It reads “But today, the billionaire