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Speeches |
Rhetorical Analysis/ Comparative Rhetorical Analysis
Your analysis will be primarily based on one or two the follow excerpts. I strongly recommend, however, that you read the full speech(s) to better get a sense of the context surrounding what is being said. If you would like to hear the speaker give his/her speech, go to one of the links below and click on the audio player.
Speech 1
Stokely Carmichael
Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom. No man can given anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves black people after they’re born, so that the only acts that white people can do is to stop denying black people their freedom; that is, they must stop denying freedom. They never give it to anyone.
Now we want to take that to its logical extension, so that we could understand, then, what its relevancy would be in terms of new civil rights bills. I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that. Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, "He’s a human being; don’t stop him." That bill was for that white man, not for me. I knew it all the time. I knew it all the time.
I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, "When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not for black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live.
So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn’t because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. It is incapability of whites to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. That is the problem of the failure of the civil rights bill.
And so in a larger sense we must then ask, How is it that black people move? And what do we do? But the question in a greater sense is, How can white people who are the majority -- and who are responsible for making democracy work -- make it work? They have miserably failed to this point. They have never made democracy work, be it inside the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, Philippines, South America, Puerto Rico. Wherever American has been, she has not been able to make democracy work; so that in a larger sense, we not only condemn the country for what it's done internally, but we must condemn it for what it does externally. We see this country trying to rule the world, and someone must stand up and start articulating that this country is not God, and cannot rule the world.
The full speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stokelycarmichaelblackpower.html
Speech 2
Bono
...To make it more sort of real, just one little story about a remarkable man in rural Uganda -- Dr. Kabira. In 1999, measles -- a disease that's almost unheard of in the U.S. -- killed hundreds of kids in Dr. Kabira's district. Now, thanks to debt relief, he's got an additional $6,000 from the state, enough for him to employ two new nurses and buy two new bicycles, so that they can get around the district and immunize the children. Last year, measles was a killer. This year, Dr. Kabira saw less than ten cases. That's good.
I just wanted you to know
what we pulled off with the help of Harvard -- with the help of people like
Jeffrey Sachs, sitting right there. I'm not here to brag, or to take credit, or
even to share it, actually. And not just to say "thanks." I think
I've come here for another reason. I think I've come here to ask you for
your help because this is a big problem and we need some smart people working
on it. I think that this will be the defining moment of our age. When the
history books (that some of you will write) make records of this moment in
time, we will be remembered for two things: the Internet, probably, and the
everyday holocaust that is Africa: 25 million HIV positives who will leave
behind 40 million AIDS orphans by 2010 in sub-Saharan Africa alone. This is the
biggest health threat since the Bubonic Plague wiped out a third of Europe. And this is happening right now in our time.
It's an unsustainable problem for Africa and, unless we hermetically seal the
continent and close our conscience, it's an unsustainable problem for the
world. But it's hard to make this a popular cause. It's hard to make it pop,
you know? And I guess that's what my job is; 'cause pop is often, sadly often,
the oxygen of politics.
Didn't John and Robert Kennedy come to Harvard? Isn't equality a son of a bitch to follow through on. Isn't "Love thy neighbour" in the global village so inconvenient? God writes us these lines, but we have to sing them -- take them to the top of the charts. But its not what the radio is playing, is it? I know. I know.
But we've got to follow
through on our ideals or we betray something at the heart of who we are.
Outside these gates, and even within them, the culture of idealism is under
siege, beset by materialism and narcissism and all the other "isms"
of indifference -- and their defense mechanisms: knowingness, the smirk, the
joke. Worse still, idealism is being reduced to a marketing tool. They've got
Martin Luther King selling phones now. Have you seen that? [unintelligible]
Civil Rights in America and Europe are bound to human rights in the rest of the
world. Human rights: the right to live like a human. But these thoughts are
expensive; they're going to cost us. Are we ready to pay the price? Is America still a great idea as well as a great country?
When I was a kid in Dublin, I watched in awe as America put a man on the moon. We though, you know, this is "mad." Nothing is impossible in America. In America, they can do anything over there. Nothing was impossible -- only human nature. And it followed because it was led. Is that still true? Tell me it's true. It's true isn't it? And if it isn't, you of all people can make it true again.
The full speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/bonoharvardcommencement.htm
Speech 3
Barbara Charline Jordan
Even as I stand here and admit that we have made mistakes, I still believe that as the people of America sit in judgment on each party, they will recognize that our mistakes were mistakes of the heart. They'll recognize that.
And now -- now we must look to the future. Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense. If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans. Many fear the future. Many are distrustful of their leaders, and believe that their voices are never heard. Many seek only to satisfy their private work -- wants; to satisfy their private interests. But this is the great danger America faces -- that we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual; each seeking to satisfy private wants. If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?
This is the question which must be answered in 1976: Are we to be one people bound together by common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor; or will we become a divided nation? For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future. We must not become the "New Puritans" and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.
There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals, and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.
As a first step -- As a first step, we must restore our belief in ourselves. We are a generous people, so why can't we be generous with each other? We need to take to heart the words spoken by Thomas Jefferson: Let us restore the social intercourse -- "Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and that affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things."
A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good. A government is invigorated when each one of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation. In this election year, we must define the "common good" and begin again to shape a common future. Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.
And now, what are those of us who are elected public officials supposed to do? We call ourselves "public servants" but I'll tell you this: We as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good if we are derelict in upholding the common good. More is required -- More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.
The full speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barbarajordan1976dnc.html
* all speeches from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
S. Minegar, 2007