Ted Talk Rhetorical Analysis Essay

“There is no disconnect around technology and design that will allow us to be fully human until we pay attention to suffering, to poverty, to exclusion, to unfairness, to injustice” (Stevenson 5). With this empowering statement, Bryan Stevenson in his 2012 TED Talk titled “We Need To Talk About An Injustice,” emphasized the importance of speaking up for the oppressed in order to maintain our humanity. Stevenson creates a compelling argument primarily focusing on convincing his audience on the importance of making people aware of the injustice occurring in the United States’ criminal justice system. Stevenson’s use of ethos creates a sense of credibility between him and his audience which allows for his argument to be more believable, then this leads to a use of logos that creates exigence and emphasizes the importance of taking action which leads to a strong use of pathos to make a connection between slavery and mass incarceration, which is used to move the audience and make them feel the need to take action. As many other TED Talk speakers, Stevenson’s purpose is to inform the audience on an issue going on in society at the time. Stevenson takes on a controversial topic, which is the injustice occurring with minorities, especially African Americans, and the criminal justice system. Stevenson not only uses …show more content…
His use of pathos is used to create an emotional response from the audience meant to move them into thinking that it is one’s right to speak for those being oppressed by the criminal justice system in order to maintain our humanity. For the first half of his speech, Stevenson focuses on informing the audience on the issue and getting them to question their stance on the issue. Now, he focuses on getting the audience to see that although they might now be in the situation, this doesn’t affect