The purposes of both Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech
and the Ally’s Choice podcast differ from each other significantly. In Obama’s “A
More Perfect Union” speech, Barack Obama gets into his personal history and the
history of his family, and talks about how both white and black people
comprised his family. He also talks about all of the places that he’s been to
and the varying amounts of wealth represented by those places, and talks about how
he made it to where he is now. By talking about these things, Barack Obama
allowed people to see him as an actual person rather than just some political
figure that isn’t anything like them, making him more relatable and even
likeable to many people as a result, even to those who might disagree with his
political views and platform. His openness about his personal life and history
also makes him more credible, and feelings of are triggered because of this.
However, because he is applying all of these things for political purposes, the
intentions behind this speech differ from those in the “Ally’s Choice” podcast.
In the “Ally’s Choice” podcast, multiple women, all of who are related, are
interviewed regarding their history together. The woman who the podcast is
centered around, Ally, explains that, while she grew up in a black family, she
has not considered herself black for most of her life, resulting in conflict
between her, her mother, and her sister. It also led to Ally telling everyone
around her that she was not black, but was actually white. All of them also get
into their experiences with racism in both school and the town that they lived
in, even up to the 1980’s and 1990’s. Two examples of this were students
holding up signs telling them to go home on Martin Luther King Day, and their
family becoming a potential target of the Ku Klux Klan. During the interview,
emotions related to sadness are triggered, because listeners are able to hear
about the hardships of those time periods from people who experienced them
directly. Because they are describing personal hardships, the podcast also
makes the women interviewed relatable to those who are listening. Because the women
interviewed are talking about what they had to go through with the intention of
showing people what things were like for them at the time rather than winning
over people politically, they are also more trustworthy.
ReplyDeleteThroughout these two text, the authors use emotions to make their points. Specifically, both of these authors use their life experiences to provoke emotion among the reader.
Throughout the podcast “Ally’s Choice”, the author constantly uses emotion to evoke sympathy among the listeners. One way that they do this is by talking about the transitions from one school to another. Then the author talks about how she was treated at the new school, because she was black and from a certain area, with one of these instances being the deodorant incident. The author said she took every opportunity to say she was white. Then as the podcast continues, the author talks about the experiences after high school. Two examples of this were incidences involving the KKK, and the grandchild calling the grandmother the N word. The author uses these example to give the readers a feeling of sympathy and trying to make the reader feels what the author is feeling. By using these personal examples, the author of “Ally’s Choice” is moving our emotions through these examples.
In the second reading, “A more perfect union”, then Presidential Candidate Barack Obama gives a speech to address issues concerning his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. President Obama invokes emotion right in the beginning when talking about the start of this country to invoke that feeling of being proud to be an American. Then Obama talks about his personal background and how he was raised by his grandparents, to show that if someone like him could make it to be a presidential candidate, then anyone can. Obama then talks about the civil rights movement and how churches were used, he does this to provoke emotion by telling the audience of our past, how its shadowed by segregation and slavery.
Then he closes off his speech by telling the story about Ashley in South Carolina, and how a group of diverse people of all ages and backgrounds came together for this campaign, working together. This gives us an emotion of accomplishment, by showing that we’ve come a long way from where we used to be in our past.
When these two use emotion it is purposeful and hits home for many people. Many people from this great country resonate soundly with certain emotions. This is part of our heritage, part of our nationality. However, there are emotions that we as humans feel close to, and are familiar with. There are also emotions related to the each specific persons experiences with life, death and the pursuit of happiness. These two use specific emotions including patriotism, sadness, and dislike for others. These emotions are used to prove their point, and to make themselves more relatable to the audience. Triggering emotions in the right way can mean the difference between someone loving you, and someone hating you.
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