Racialized Violence In Speech Analysis

Racialized violence

This theme arose in both speeches through different aspects as Yusra Khogalia and Dr Martin Luther King condemned racialized violence of African American and Canadians. After doing research of the names mentioned during Khogali’s speech, she is referring to individuals killed by police in separate altercations. She says “black people are being murdered in the City?! We have cautions. What happened to Andrew Loko? What happened to Jermaine Carby? What happened to Abdirahman Abdi?” Khogali goes on by questioning the city of Toronto telling the crowd, “how is this city a sanctuary when black people are being killed so mercilessly?” King mentions the victims of racialized violence when commenting “we can never be satisfied as

While being from different generations, but opposing racial inequality, Yusra Khogali and Dr Martin Luther King drew similarities though, for the most part, retained noticeable differences in their choice of words and tone when addressing the issues concerning their movement.

The first and second theme of countering racial inequality exhibited comparable messages but major differences in the vocabulary used by both speakers. In theme one, Khogali worded her speech in a more confrontational manner using the word “fight back,” as compared to King mentioning a “lift from” racial inequality. As well, both leaders of the social movements mentioned unification by coming “together” (Khogali), and creating “brotherhood” (King) which drew the similarities in theme one. In the second theme, both King and Khogali mentioned racialized violence towards African American and Canadians. Both leaders had very different ways of expressing acts of racialized violence, for example, Khogali mentioned the name of individuals that were killed by police. On the contrary, King spoke of the “horror” and the violence of police brutality as a whole, rather than specifically using examples of

For King, his views are unifying and humble, his speech gives me great respect and persuasion of why there was a need to change racial inequality in 1963. As for Khogali, I also understand why she is a founder of Black Lives Matter as the group formed in 2013 in opposition to protest racial inequality such as police brutality, for example. What sets both speakers apart is their tone and message as leaders, Khogali during her speech seemed to have difficulty controlling her emotions when speaking to the crowd. Meanwhile, King spoke in an eloquent fashion as his words flowed with motivation and ambition, giving the listener visions of ending racial inequality, how to oppose the social issue, and dreams of achieving equality. Khogali’s words and tone when speaking did not help forward the concerns for racial inequality in a proper manner to the public. It can be highly questionable to call our prime minister a “white supremacist” after he has been openly advocating for a diverse Canada and pro-immigration policies, therefore, hurting the image of Black Lives Matter Toronto and leader Yusra Khogali. Because BLM is a decentralized social movement unlike the Civil Rights movement with figureheads such as Dr Martin Luther King, gaining public support may be difficult when individual leaders like Khogali, hurt