Indledning
Pharrell Williams's essay America's Past and Present Are Racist. We Deserve a Black Future is persuasive writing. Its primary purpose is to convince the reader that now it is the turn of blacks to act, and if you are black, now is the time to stand up for yourself.
A characteristic of persuasive writing is the subjective words used in the text. The sender of the essay is Pharrell Williams, he is a well-known singer, songwriter, producer, clothing designer and a lot of other exciting titles.
He has won many awards throughout his music career which started in the 1990s.
Uddrag
Williams makes use of pathos by appealing to our feelings. Among other things, he does so here:
” But if we are ever to hold this nation accountable, we must force it to construct a future that offers us the same opportunities for wealth, prosperity and success as the ground-floor profiteers who built an empire with our free labor”( page 4, line 5-8).
He gives the reader a sense that it is important that we stand together, and he makes you feel like doing it so.
In addition, Williams uses a lot of ethos, both through other people and through himself and his own character. Every time he uses introductions like “I think” and “I mean” it tells something about him as a person.
Also, he uses persons as "Angela Davis, Tyler, and Barbara Lee" to support his own character