Rhetorical Analysis
The title of this article is “Hip hop’s betrayal of Black Women” which first appeared in 2006, and was written by Jennifer McLune a librarian, activist, and writer living in Washington D.C. Although, the author makes valid points in her response she does not demonstrate enough knowledge on the subject of hip hop culture. The author argues black women in today’s hip hop culture are unfairly made out to be inferior to their male counterparts. The article can be broken down into five divisions. The author writes in response to the “socioeconomic” (297) reasoning given for the current state of affairs. The author disagrees with Powell’s response calling it a way to silence feminist critiques of the culture. The author argues that hip hop owes its success to the ideology to women-hating and that poverty is argued to be an excuse of it. The author addresses a range of issues from contemporary artists being too inconsistent, to female artists not being as united when it comes to standing up for a change. For this reason “Hip hop’s betrayal of Black Women” should not be considered by PopMatters and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) for the top prize for persuasiveness due the author’s use of rhetorical analysis and logical fallacy in addressing opposing viewpoints
In “Hip-Hop’s Betrayal of Black Women” the author uses three kinds of rhetorical techniques in the article logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos is used to show facts, reasons, and statistics in support of the author’s argument. Pathos is used to stir the emotions of the audience on the topic, however this can backfire a make the argument get off subject. Finally, ethos is used to appeal to the audience, show knowledge of the subject and good character. The dominant technique used is pathos, which appears five times, while logos is used four times and ethos once. The first