Rhetorical Criticism in Action: Obama’s a “More Perfect Union” Speech

Rhetorical Criticism in Action: Obama’s a “More Perfect Union” Speech October 22, 2011

In the essay titled, THE PROPHETIC VOICE AND THE FACE OF THE OTHER IN BARACK OBAMA’S “A MORE PERFECT UNION” ADDRESS, MARCH 18, 2008 David Frank argues that Obama “sought to quell the controversy sparked by YouTube clips of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Further Frank suggests that “Obama crosses over the color line with a rhetorical strategy designed to preserve his viability as a presidential candidate and in so doing,
delivered a rhetorical masterpiece that advances the cause of racial dialogue and
rapprochement.” Owing to his bi-racialness, Frank further suggests that the speech succeeds because “Obama sounds the prophetic voice of Africentric theology that merges the Hebrew and Jewish faith traditions with African American experience, assumes theological consilience (that different religious traditions share a commitment to caring for others), and enacts the rhetorical counterpart to Lévinas’s philosophy featuring the “face of the other.

Below is the speech in its entirely


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