The Rhetorical Analysis Of Malcolm X's Speech Learning To Read

In the passage “Learning to Read”, Malcolm X argued that history is “whitewashed.” He argued that the other races other than the whites, were oppressed and marginalized by the whites all throughout history. He wanted the black people to learn and be proud of their history. He wanted to unite the non-white community to question their rights of identity. He convinces his audience that history was whitewashed by using his own personal anecdote, rhetorical questions, and citations of the books he studied from.

Malcolm X used different types of strategies to persuade his audience but the most significant one he used was his own anecdote. He told his story of how he climbed his way up from the very bottom. He stated how his handwriting looked like and how he couldn’t articulate and how he wasn’t functional. However, he also displayed the process of how he educated himself and how he became who he was in the end. Malcolm X included his anecdote to show his audience, the black people and the African Americans of the United States, that they are just as powerful as the white people. He included this anecdote to motivate his audience and try to inspire them to learn more about their history and how their people were unfairly treated by the whites. He uses pathos to provoke curiosity and interest from his audience. To convince his audience, he used an anecdote to ignite a large variety of emotions from his audience: motivation, curiosity, interest, and inspiration. By igniting these emotions, he is able to convince his audience to learn more about their history and take his side by taking actions in getting their rights.

In addition to his anecdote, he used rhetorical questions to help strengthen his argument. He expresses his thoughts through rhetorical questions like “who in the world’s history has ever played a worse ‘skin game’ than the white man?” and “how is the black man going to get ‘civil rights’ before first he wins his human rights?” The questions the author mention prompts the reader to have thoughts about how history is whitewashed, whether or not it was unfair for the blacks and how they had been oppressed and many more. Rhetorical questions prods his readers into agreeing with him. It gets his readers to realize how they had been stopped from reaching their full potential which can help his readers support him. His rhetorical questions, assists his reader into agreeing with him and supporting him.

Furthermore, he uses citations of the books he studied from to make his argument more valid. He cites the books he used to learn more about the history and all about race like Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B, Story of Civilization by Will Durant, Outline of History by HG Wells, Negro History by Carter G. Woodson, Three Volumes of Sex and Race by J.A Rogers etc. He cites everything as well as explain the effect each book had on him and what he learned about with each book. This helps the reader increase their trust as it portrays that the argument is well researched. It helps ground his argument in reality, so that even the skeptical readers who didn’t believe in him or trust him won’t be able to dismiss it.

In summary, Malcolm X - using his own personal anecdote, rhetorical questions, and citations of the books he studied from- is effectively and successbly able to persuade the non-white community to unite and claim their rights of identity. It’s his use of persuasive elements that not only inform the reader of the problem but also spur the reader into action. He used emotional appeal as well as citations to help improve on his argument. Moreover, he was able to persuade a large variety of people whether it is black or asian or other parts of the non-white community.