Kerisha Goode
ERH 201WX
November 8, 2016
Research informed essay

In June 2016 Jessie Williams, Grey’s Anatomy actor, was honored and awarded the Humanitarian Award at the Black Entertainment Television Awards (BET). The Humanitarian Award, sponsored by State Farm, has been given annually for the past 14 years. In order to receive this award a person must posses and obtain a high level of ethos within the community. A person who is considered to be intelligent, virtuous, and an overall good character is one who is considered for this award. “The speaker must understand what the community believes makes a person believable” (Herrick 81). Although Williams uses all three rhetorical appeals in his speech, the use of pathos dominates tone when communicating his message with the audience.

Throughout the speech Williams attempts to persuade the audience by making them feel emotions of curiosity, grief, and admiration, which we call pathos. Herrick describes pathos as “the study of a psychology of emotion, governed by a moral concern for discovering and act on the truth” (Herrick 79). In his introduction, Williams lays out his thesis, that his speech is for those “that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do”. This is framework for the remainder of his speech to come.

Williams then reaches out to the black women in the crowd, who he says, “have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you”. Appealing to African American women was most significant because they made up more than half of the audience he was speaking to. Williams knew that appealing to the majority would “put the audience in the right frame of mind” (Herrick 79).
He then appeals to the audiences emotions by reminding them that yesterday would have been Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday. Yet, “paid public servants can pull a drive by on a 12 year old playing alone in a park in broad day light…” Williams doesn’t stop there, he continues on by mentioning how after events like this can occur they “then return home to make a sandwich”.
I see Williams playing on the emotions of the audience by pointing out the pain and sadness many of the audience members must hold, yet he rowels them back up with the sarcasm of going home to make a sandwich. “Tell that to Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner… Sandra Bland, Dorian Hunt”. By listing the victims of police brutality I believe provides a connection between the grief of those who have passed to their families and now the audience.