Michael
Thompson
September
9, 2012
Honors
English IV
Danehower
In this article Murdock writes about
the racial tensions going on between the two presidential parties. He mainly
focuses around Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at a convention where he told
a predominately black group that the republicans are going to “put ya’ll back
in chains”. This was in reference to how the banks would work under Romney and
how Americans would be put back in chains under banks rules. Murdock wants to
incite a large response from readers by letting them see comparisons made by
him and for them to tell Obama to stop the racial rhetoric.
Murdock’s main audience in this
article would be that of Republicans and African-American individuals. Murdock
downplays the democrats by showing how republican rule has done nothing of what
democrats have allegedly said such as the bank situation. However, Murdock
wants his audience to agree with him, but he also wants them to understand that
there is no agenda to enslave any individual and that the rhetoric Biden used
needs to stop.
The persona adopted by Murdock would
be that of a strong republican but also as an African American individual. In
this article, Murdock degrades the Democratic Party by giving historical
examples from the time of the abolitionists and the start of the Ku Klux Klan.
While Murdock adopts the persona of a strong republican, he also adopts the
persona of an African American individual. He does this by first mocking what
another person had said that “only black people can get angry” to which he
replies “if only you could see the look on my face”. So he adopts this persona
in a very satirical manner.
The tone of this article is very
belligerent and defensive. Murdock gives a belligerent attitude towards the
subject of racism by the words he used such as angry, invective, and even
racial pot – stirring. But this belligerence ties directly in with the
defensiveness of the article. He defends republicans in the sense that they are
not going to be enslaving anyone and he wants to audience to see this as well.
He gets the audience to see this through his language and diction.
The structure of this article was
somewhat confusing at first. When first reading Murdock begins with Biden’s
remarks at the convention but goes on to almost end with a gay-rights volunteer
but after re-reading Murdock does this to intertwine different scenarios to let
the audience see that if these racial rhetoric remarks keep going that
something more lethal could happen. However, his introduction is plain and
simple, easy to comprehend. The body is a logical development as I stated in
the above sentence with the intertwining of different stories. Meanwhile his
conclusion made me laugh when he said that Obama needs to keep Biden on a
leash.
Murdock’s supporting materials were
decent. He had excellent examples to give and perfect literal analogies of how
these remarks about racism could go on to lead to bigger things. However, one
remark/example made by Murdock was a little outdated. This was the example of
how during the abolitionists period, it was the Democrats attempting to keep
slaves in chains but he made it seem as though these were the same people
today. I don’t know if he noticed but right around President Nixon’s time, the
roles of the parties switched, where Republicans went from Liberal to
Conservative, while Democrats went from Conservative to Liberal. So that
example wasn’t all that great, but Murdock’s other analogies/examples were
pretty decent.
Finally, Murdock’s strategies were
superb. He used language that everyone could understand. Anyone with at least a
sixth grade education could read and comprehend his words. His appeals were to
a specific audience not too everyone. Murdock used allusions and refutations to
get his word across. His refutations involved arguing for the republicans and
showing the democrats weaknesses such as the whole bank ordeal where even when
a republican was in power, banks did not “enslave” Americans but were actually
more lenient. While his allusions consisted of roles democrats adopted during
the abolitionists period and also comparisons of recent events and showing how
one little thing can lead to bigger things (such as a gay-rights leading to
shootings, or even riots with volunteers being hurt).
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