Rhetorical Analysis Of The War On Drugs

Thao Tran

Professor Aboulian

English 1C

21 March 2017

The War on Drugs: A Rhetorical Analysis

The War on Drugs, which was declared by President Nixon in 1971, efforts to control drug use and sales in inner-city neighborhoods. The government has been recently targeting poor communities of color. In 1980, the skyrocketing drug arrests reflected a surge in illegal drug activity. In The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, the author also stated that “huge cash grants were made to those law enforcement agencies that were willing to make drug-law enforcement a top priority” (73). Clearly, the Federal Government did a big involvement in the War on Drugs by giving grant reward for law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the Government, at the moment, instantly

Establishing credibility in claims is really important because it makes the information more trustworthy. On page 61, Alexander discusses how polices have the right of searches and seizures people virtually anywhere. She actually mentions the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution while talking about the topic. In that way, readers will know exactly what the Amendment is, so that the information is not misleading. Furthermore, Alexander does a lot of research on trustworthy sources like the New York Times, the National Journal and so on. It can be seen that the author does not randomly pick any kinds of newspaper, but she does sort out the ones which have good reputation and reliable. To express about how severe drug use was happening, New York Times displayed that “64 percent of those polled … now thought that drugs were the most significant problem in the United States” (55). The percentage was higher than half of the polls, which was like an alert for the government to face the problem. Therefore, by using ethos in The New Jim Crow, Alexander stands her book out with credible sources, which empower her arguments to the

The title may tell the readers the whole picture of following paragraphs. The author really knows how to use words to get readers’ attention. On page 61, “Rules of the Game” sounds like the War on Drugs is a game of the government who also set the rules. It is the Supreme Court changing the rules so that “anyone, virtually anywhere, for any reason, can become a target of drug-law enforcement activity” (63). Since then, people cannot sue the police for search and seize without a warrant. Another example of how Alexander plays with words in the subtitles is “Kissing Frogs” (69). Polices had to make a lot of searches to find an illegal drug case while they might catch innocent people. Although the agencies were specially trained to have the “sixth sense” that could recognize drug holders, they hardly catch up a case in thousand searches they did. Alexander describes this idea like “you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince” (71). Polices stopped everyone they suspected, and then prayed if the suspicion had drugs. This comparison adds imagine into her arguments, and also makes the whole argument ironic. In short, Alexander knows how to wrap up the whole thesis by using word choice that brings her argument to be seen in a different