Rhetorical Analysis Of The New Sovereignty By Shelby Steele

“We are wrong to think of democracy as a gift of freedom it is really a kind of discipline that avails freedom.” (Steele 458) Shelby Steele is an author, professor, and well known commentator on race relations. He has a Ph.D. in English, an M.A. in sociology, and has written several books on racial issues. He focuses mostly on race relations and the issues that ensue from racial biased programs. His mother and father were both active for the civil rights movement and the things they did during it made an impression on his values, the article he wrote displays these values. Steele’s article “The New Sovereignty” targets an open minded audience who are under the so called “New Sovereignty” it also targets an open minded nationwide audience who

He talks about the history of the civil rights movement and how it had changed in the mid-1960s after the with the quote “The 1964 civil rights act and the 1965 voting rights act were, on one level, admission of guilt by American society.” (Steele 455)And mentioning the Rodney King verdict to give the effect of why and how the diversity changed. The quote is a good persuasive mechanism because it is an example of the history Steele employed to also gain his credibility with his audience and persuades them in particular because it is about the minority and the change thereof. The quote is used in his article because both groups knew they had wronged and been wronged with the admittance of and the laws passed because of it, and stating that the past is why the programs are the way they are today. Steele’s reasoning behind the use of these historical facts are to show to the people currently under the collective entitlements of how and why they were formed giving him credibility as an author, and to persuade them since he is credible to move away from the collective entitlements and to change the programs to be fair for all . Steele also uses statistics in his writing to gain credibility with his audience to show how the issue has changed by giving truthful statistical facts. Steele does this when he writes “By the 1970s more

The reader can deduct that he is only targeting an open minded audience because if a person were to have a closed mind, then their stand on the situation would not waiver. He wanted to persuade these audiences to question and move away from collective entitlements, and to change the way the programs are run in order to get back to actual integration rather than the reverse discrimination that has caused a separation. Steele’s implementation of rhetoric helped persuade his audience with the different choices he used like the use of historical and statistical data of how integration has changed, with anecdotes to get his audience to know why he cares about this “New Sovereignty”, and through the use of moral reasoning to convey to his audience the negative effects of collective entitlements. Steele effectively persuaded his audience specifically to question and challenge the way the programs are run so they can start moving towards true integration, and did this well with the choices of rhetoric he