Ida B Wells in "Lynch Law in America", is challenging the country to come forward and take responsibility as a nation and protect its national identity. She sees the people somewhat as trendsetters as she challenges them to take action. She says, "Our country should be placed speedily above the plane of confessing herself a failure at self government. This cannot be until Americans of every section, of broadest patriotism and best and wisest citizenship, not only see the defect in our country's armor but take the necessary steps to remedy it"(Wells-Barnett 4). This direct statement while calling the American government a failure essentially she asks that due to their patriotism and citizenship for country they need to take action to change this for the good of the country. By making this claim rather than making it about an unfairness to blacks she can appeal to an wide range of non-colored readers.
I agree with your claim, but I also think that this appeal to pathos relates to (in terms of rhetoric of time) what the American people are, and even more importantly, should (or could) be. As you mention in passing, Wells-Barnett implicitly divides people into several categories: the victims (those hanged without a trial), the perpetrators (those doing the hanging), and the onlookers (everyone else, not just in America). She hopes and, as you say accurately, "challenges" that through action, (and not inaction, i.e. the onlookers) the atrocities will be stopped, and the American people will become what they claim to be ("Our watchword has been 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'." [Wells-Barnett 4]), what they should be. She does this by shaming the reader into desiring better ("failure of self-government" [ibid 5], etc.) and illustrating the hypocrisy evident ("'Stop your lynchings at home before sending your protests abroad.'")
ReplyDeleteWe can then apply a few of Killingsworths ideas, like rhetoric of crisis, and time as a place, which indicate her exigence in attempting to direct the course of future events based on the unfortunate current state of affairs, as I mention in a separate post.