The ethos behind Stokely Carmichaels and Fannie Lou Hammer’s speeches along with Freedom Marchers greatly differs from that of Malachai Richter and Cindy Sheehan, affecting the persuasiveness of their protests.
Stokley Carmichaels’ ethos revolved greatly on his previous experiences, eloquent language and wit, along with his educated speech to the Berkeley University Speeches. He strongly believed in protesting unfair treatment of blacks and demonstrated this by giving a speech that was well written, concise and well researched. Fannie Lou Hammer’s main ethos centered on her first hand experiences of discrimination and her simple rhetorical speech. She spoke on a level that was easy for a common person to relate to and described in great detail her horrible experience in jail, all in a strong willed manner. The freedom marches ethos revolved around the fact that they were extremely peaceful and the people who participated were dignified and patient, singing instead of yelling, praying instead of fighting, and sacrificing their lives to stand up for what they believed in. These previous examples were credible because of their very strong and positive ethos, which is very different, then the protest examples that were shown today.
Malachai Richter’s ethos was not as credible because of his past depression and lack of personal ties to the war. I believe that he stood up for a cause he believed in, but also lost credibility in the way he chose to protest. Instead of influencing people through speeches, marches, rallies etc., he sacrificed his life and wrote an obituary in his blog explaining his reasoning for his self-immolation. To me it is a horrible act to take your own life, so his ethos is not very strong in my mind. I don’t believe Cindy Sheehan had a strong ethos either. I can’t possibly even fathom what the pain of loosing a loved one or a child could inflict on a person, and I deeply sympathize with her situation. However, I do believe her way of protesting lacked a lot of ethos. After watching her speech I was greatly turned off by her form of protest, despite the fact that I don’t necessarily agree with the fact that we are still in Iraq. By beginning her speech completely off topic, talking about the materialism of our world today and criticizing the people who couldn’t make it to the rally, it was hard for me to keep an open mind to what she had to say. Also, she wasn’t a good public speaker and did not seem well educated on the war or what was exactly going on. To me, she was a mother crushed by the death of her son, seeking governmental action in the wrong ways. I am not completely against her protest, but I just cannot appreciate her style of speaking or rallying.
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4 comments:
I agree with you that the ethos of the protesters we read about last week were far more pervasive than what we read about tonight. I think the ability to relate to people can go a long way.
I think you are right in saying that Cindy Sheehan was too aggressive. It almost felt like she was still grieving for her son and not really protesting against the Iraq war rationally and logically. Furthermore, she attacked those who did not support her, and I don't really think that would have increased peoples' support for her. When listening to her speech, I probably would not have joined her protest movement, though I am against the Iraq War.
i agree that she was too aggressive. although her protests were non-violent her speech was so aggressive it actually was violent. and she was so negative and hateful even to her own supporters that she really didn't seem to have much appeal to anyone than those who already thought like her.
I agree with you that Richter's ethos wasn't as strong because of the way he chose to protest the war and that he wasn't credible without any ties to the war.
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