Rhetorical Analysis Of Hillary Clinton

Beginning with the death of Trayvon Martin in early 2012, the United States has started to acknowledge the way police mistreat citizens, particularly black people. With this “new”, rising topic, which the nation previously turned a blind eye to, people have also started to look at other issues that have disproportionately affected black Americans, such as mass incarceration. Mass incarceration is usually defined as the sharp increase of imprisoned individuals in the last forty years (200,000 in 1972 to 2.2 mil in 2010?). Although the government itself rarely addresses these problems, others have made it their mission to combat these injustices through social media, television, and speeches. Among those who have spoken out against the political mistreatment of black Americans is former First Lady Hillary Clinton. In her 2015 speech at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton educates her audience about the current criminal justice system as it affects black Americans. In the years since and even before Clinton’s speech, the government implemented policies that potentially could decrease the instances of police brutality …show more content…
In an attempt to establish exigence, she frames herself as a former senator, former attorney, and a grandmother. Though it is clear that Clinton is a complex, multifaceted person, her ever-changing roles make it difficult to fully connect with what she is saying. Furthermore, she only briefly uses these statuses to prove. She switches to her role as a grandmother in order to appear more human, more approachable, more relatable to her audience. She states, “Not only as a mother and a grandmother but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families.” By stating this, Clinton creates a mixture of exigence and pathos, albeit for a only a short amount of time. Because her grandmother role is only glossed over, her exigent endeavor falls