Is He Making an Argument?

If you are new to learning about arguments, one of the initial challenges you may be facing is how to tell if a text asserts an argument.  Often this is a simple task, but just as often it is not.  Even people who have lots of experience asserting and analyzing arguments can struggle with this issue when presented with some particular text.  You will recall that we addressed this issue in the last section of Chapter 4 of Reading Argumentative Texts, where we distinguished nonfiction argumentative texts from four other kinds of nonfiction writing that generally do not assert arguments.  This post is intended to provide you further guidance to meet this common obstacle to understanding.

An example will illustrate the challenge and suggest some tools to meet it.

One of the most noteworthy texts of the civil rights movement in American in the last half of the 20th century is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  (You can find this essay on numerous websites.  Here’s one: Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.].pdf (google.com).)  Dr. King wrote this essay in April 1963, while in the Birmingham, Alabama City Jail for his participation in nonviolent, civil rights protests.  It is a response to a public statement signed by eight white clergymen who, in effect, asked Dr. King, “why are you, a clergyman from Atlanta, Georgia, coming to Birmingham, Alabama, to demonstrate in our streets and why are you doing it now?”  One question they raised specifically was why Dr. King and his fellow protesters didn’t give the new city of Birmingham administration time to address their grievances. 

Dr. King responded, “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’  It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.  This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”  He continues with the following paragraph (which I have edited):

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. . . . [W]hen you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky. . .; when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “ni**er,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” – then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. . . . . I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”

Is Dr. King making an argument in this paragraph?  If you cannot answer that question easily, not to worry.  A second (or third) reading will help you, but even then you may be uncertain. That’s when you reach for one of your analytic reading tools. 

Let’s start with what may be an easier question:  is this paragraph rhetorical in any respect?  There is little doubt that it is.  Recall that in Chapter 4 we discussed that Aristotle used “rhetoric” to refer to the use of words to persuade the reader or listener to act in some fashion, to believe something, or to feel something.  In his view, speakers or writers persuade either through (1) appeals to reasons and logical arguments, (2) appeals to emotions, feelings, or shared values, or (3) appeals to the credibility or reputation of the writer or speaker.  So, using Aristotle’s framework, what kind or kinds of appeal(s) is Dr. King employing in this passage?

Clearly he is appealing to the emotions of and, he presumes, to the values he shares with, the eight white clergymen and the wider audience he addresses.  He does this through a series of vivid images – “vicious lynch mobs,” “hate filled policemen,” “airtight cage of poverty,” “tears welling up” in the eyes of his six year old daughter who is barred from Funtown; sleeping at night in automobiles; “nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’”; and so on.  This rhetorical appeal to emotions and values is effective in part because of the particularity of the examples Dr. King marshals.  Imagine telling your innocent six-year-old daughter or sister that she can’t go to the local amusement park because she’s Black (or Hispanic, or Asian, etc.), and watching her begin to cry.  It is also effective because of the multiplicity and variety of these examples.  They paint a powerful portrait of how racism and discrimination infect every aspect of the lives of Black people. 

Is Dr. King also appealing to the rational and logical powers of his readers?  If so, that would suggest that he is making an argument of some sort.  As I read this paragraph, Dr. King is making an inductive-theoretical argument, along these lines: 

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.
Over that time, we have experienced:

• vicious mobs lynching our mothers and fathers at will and drowning our sisters and brothers at whim;
• hate-filled policemen cursing, kicking and even killing our black brothers and sisters;
• the vast majority of our twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
• our tongues twisted and our speech stammering as we seek to explain to our six-year-old daughters why they can’t go to the public amusement park . . . and tears welling up in their eyes when they are told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and seeing ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in their little mental skies;
• taking a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of our automobiles because no motel will accept us;
• humiliation day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”;
• being called “ni**er,” “boy” (however old you are), and “John”;
• our wives and mothers never being given the respected title “Mrs.”;
• being harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that we are Negroes, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next;
• being plagued with inner fears and outer resentments;
• forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness.”

Therefore, for all of these reasons, our impatience is legitimate and unavoidable and we cannot wait any longer.

The argument is inductive because its conclusion does not necessarily follow from its premises.  It is theoretical because it does not ask any person or entity to do something, but rather makes a case for the truth of a statement about some state of affairs, its conclusion.

In sum, this paragraph is both rhetorical and asserts an argument.  As we saw in Chapter 4, the five forms of nonfiction texts are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  A text can have characteristics of more than one of these forms. 

You can perform this sort of analysis with other parts of Dr. King’s essay and any other text when you are uncertain whether it asserts an argument.  Try it.