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Rhetorical Analysis Obama Speech

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Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech to his potential voters in the 2008 election. This speech was given to address race equality and race relations in the United States. Comments perceived as racist and Anti-American from Reverend Wright, triggered his speech. He felt that this speech needed to be made to help save his reputation and his campaign. Obama then talks about how we need to become a more perfect union by addressing division, creating a better future, and ending discrimination. At the end of this speech. Barack Obama wants his potential voters to go out and vote for not just him, but for a more perfect union.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama addresses how we should become a more perfect union and how we should not …show more content…

To achieve a more perfect union, we must acknowledge the trouble existence of discrimination. He points out that discrimination exist “not just in the minds of black people” and must be addressed with not just words, but also actions, that will further help the economy prosper. Obama encourages that in order to do so, we must invest in our schools and community, “by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations” (Obama, 32). He effectively uses symbolism by using a ladder to let us see that we must provide this generation with the ability to ascend to “the top of the ladder” and reach new heights. As a country we can improve and grow together. This statement is powerful and shows his drive towards making a better country for this generation. He touches the hearts of the audience by saying that what we want and believe does not come at the expense of only want he wants and believes. He genuinely focuses on us a whole and that we all can achieve greatness with the help of one another. We are encouraged to agree with him by his use of parallelism when he says, “that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper” (Obama, 32). This is effective because it connects the words health, welfare, and education with black, brown, and white. It says that all these words are parallel to each other and that all races need all three services to help America

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President Barack Obama’s speech was very informative to those who watch the speech and those who thought it wasn’t interesting. President Obama and his associates guaranteed that the current year 's State of the Union location would be characteristic, and he conveyed on that guarantee. It was a somewhat unusual speech. Surprisingly committed to countering Republican possibility for president, unusually free and clever, and somewhere else extremely clever, leaving behind the tragic peaks of past locations for a wonky and clever however no less passionate request for civics and a superior governmental issues. I believe the objective of the speech, assistants said in reviews, would be for Obama to start to case his own legacy for the antiquarians.

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Racism has been an important issue that plays a huge role in today’s society. In Roy Peter Clark’s article “Why it worked”, he expressed his views on Barack Obama’s speech “A More Perfect Union”. Also comparing it to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In Obama’s speech he discussed the constitution and racial segregation in America, and the comments made by Reverend J. Wright, his former pastor. He also tells a little about his racial background.

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Martin Luther King then lead his followers to a peaceful march, a protest for equal rights, that landed them on a historical bridge. This march helped encourage the voting rights act, and to help the civil rights keep moving forward. Thesis: In his speech, Obama establishes a rhetorical situation with his of exigence, audience, purpose, and different rhetorical appeals and devices.

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He says,”We know we can’t stop every act of violence… but maybe we can stop one act of evil, one act of violence”(Obama 2). In this line, Obama is indicating that although America, and specifically the issue of increasing amounts of violence in America will never be will never be “perfect”, perfection can still be aimed towards. This very real goal is found multiple times throughout the speech as Obama continues to restate the idea that improvement should always be an option. Another example of this is when he says,”We can’t save everybody, but we can save some”(Obama 2). Here Obama is addressing the violence and deaths connected to guns.

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