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Rhetorical Analysis Of Brittney Cooper's Speech

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Brittney Cooper is an author, black feminist theorist and Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender's studies at Rutgers University. In her speech, The racial politics of time, Cooper argues that the concept of time is dominated by whites and that “that time does not belong to us[blacks].” She adopts an informative and inspirational tone to convey her position on race in America. Cooper fills her speech with rhetorical questions, facts, and quotes from professional and personal peers. Cooper begins her speech off with a rhetorical question,“What if I told you that time has a race, a race in the contemporary way that we understand race in the United States?”,this quote helps reel the listener in, gets them thinking and sets the tone for the …show more content…

Including this small snippet switches the initial tone from informal to formal, only for that split second. It might not seem like it but this slight change in tone is vital for the flow of the speech. Following this snippet she quotes her mother, “We will not be those black people”. By using this personal experience she appeals to the emotional side of the audience. The use of this anecdote and small quote are only the beginning to her use of pathos for the duration of the speech and can also cause many of the listeners to think back to a time where something similar happened within their …show more content…

They also boost her integrity by showing that she has done extensive research and is not simply making claims without having the information to back these claims up. Not only does she uses credible sources and quotes, she also integrates facts and statistics in her

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