Our Mayor

At this point, I must say that my opinion of our mayor has sunken to a very low level. In these final words of his speech, all he is trying to do is make the people of Detroit feel sorry for him and his family. Now I don't know the whole scandalous story, but I what I know is enough to infer the we shouldn't be feeling sorry for him, rather, he should be apologizing to us. This tactic that he is using to try and save his reputation is futile in my eyes. From what I've heard, he does not sound at all like an honorable man (but I could very well be mistaken).

Now in his speech, Mayor Kwame uses various rhetorical strategies to enhance and reveal his point. One that really sticks out is the use of pethos. He appeals many times throughout the speech to the emotions of the citizens of Detroit, trying to make us feel sympathetic towards him. One such example is when he talks about him AND his family being called the n-words many times in the past thirty days. Some people listening may have felt a hint of remorse towards him after saying this. Not only has he been called the n-word, but his family too. I think that Kwame brought his family into the speech for the sole reason of making people feel sorry towards him, and it might have worked for some. Another rhetorical strategy used that might have produced the same effect was that of diction. Kwame used carefuly crafted words in order to extract a certain emotion from his audience. An example of this is when he says, "This unethical, illegal lynch mob mentality has got to stop." These descriptive words make it seem like Kwame is being attacked for no good reason. he once again appeals to the audience's emotions and tries to make them feel apologetic towards him. He thinks that by whining about this, maybe he will gain support back and win the people over.