Nick Delquadro

Engl 1010

Prof. Haslam

12/29/2021

The Rhetorical Analysis On “Black in a white state”

When Jennifer Graham, a conversvative and political writer for Deseret news, wrote

“Black in a white state,” she did so during the peak of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.

They had reached Utah’s streets with violent and raging reactions, fighting for the respect of the

minority’s culture, physical body, and humanity. Graham did an excellent job of directing her

target audience’s emotions in multiple ways, establishing credibility, as well as providing

statistical evidence for the reader to better understand the issue.

In “Black in a white state,” Graham intends to put a community with only a 2% African-

American population into the shoes of the minority to gain sympathy. She does this by taking 4

personal conversations between her and African-Americans from Utah (2), Vermont (1), and

Montana (1) on their view of living and growing up in a state with an African-American

population of 2% or less. To introduce these conversations, she provides a brief background

behind how small the minority is in the US, saying, “Utah is among seven states where the Black

population is less than 2%; the others include Vermont, Maine, Wyoming and New Hampshire.

And in two states — Idaho and Montana — fewer than 1% of the population is Black.”

This element of sympathy was just one way that Graham did a great job playing at the

heart strings of her intended audience. She also formed an image of the African-American
community by quite literally using images. The first and largest image at the top of her article

features an African-American boxing trainer, Dash Cox, training with a lighter skinned woman.

This image brings thoughts and ideas of strength, bravery, and hard work behind the African-

American community to counteract any possible previous emotions like being small in numbers

in comparison to the white majority, a victim throughout history still affecting them today, or

lacking many resources that make a lot of people successful. She then chose people from

different backgrounds and ages who all encountered significant conflicts as an African-American

and fit with the ideas that emitted from the image of Dash Cox.

She then does a great job of establishing credibility. First, she has easily displayed her

credentials as a political writer with her experience in culture and politics with the Wall Street

Journal, The Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and many other well recognized

publishers as her target audience can easily come to her profile with a click on her name, lying at

the top of her piece. Second, many might question her point of view about African-Americans as

she is a white citizen of South Carolina or her possible bias, coming from her representation for

Deseret News. However, Graham does an outstanding job of disproving these beliefs by her

approach of taking reliable sources directly from the less than 2% African-Americans from

different backgrounds and at different ages. Her intended audience gets a direct look at that point

of view just as she intended. Graham displays each of the 4 African-American voices from their

point of view to get a more direct feeling from the reader as well as a picture of them, strong,

brave, and hard working.

First, Dash Cox’s voice can be read with a calmer tone. He speaks about his fight for

respect. In today's world, people have asked directly to his face who the owner is, he says, and

blatantly comment on how his wife is white while he is black. He has had run-ins with police
officers and has had to evolve around these “discomforts” and live a life as a father,

businessman, and African-American much differently than he or his wife had before. He gives

the same speeches that his mom gave to him about how to act around a police officer and in

certain neighborhoods. He closes his take as an African American in Utah by stating that the way

through this dissension is with respect for each other’s culture and hue, embrace that there is an

issue, and have the courage to stand up for yourself and others. The calmness and strength that

Cox brings in his voice and words help fit the emotions and words emitting from his picture.

Second, a 28 year old from Rutland, Vermont, named Greg Zullo, continues with this

calmer tone that Dash Cox provided but with a background as a younger citizen. He had been

teased and bullied mercilessly at public schools for the color of his skin. As he grew older, it

continued with racist comments and many racial confrontations with police officers while he’s

driving, asking irregular and inappropriate questions, Zullo says. He remained optimistic as he

stated how he turned his unfortunate situation into a great life. Zullo got an excellent education

in business and evolved early on around the racist encounters that he had experienced in the past

and may experience in the present and future. This evolution, he says, prevents further and

insensible punishment. Zullo closes with a strong statement that he will not move away from it in

fear but rather stand against it. This strongly contributed to Graham’s credibility and ideology

behind her piece.

The 3rd and 4th speakers, Tyana Williams and Jacob Elder, have a stronger and more

stern tone in their part of “Black in a white state.” They will not tolerate any forms that they see.

They have faced life-threatening problems that have changed their lives and how they view the

world. Their solution comes with intolerance towards any form of racism.
 These personal experiences serve well as representatives for the African-American

community. Graham has connected and shared her role as the author with these 4 African-

Americans.

Lastly, Graham doesn’t just display other people’s lives. She provides the facts of reality.

This draws the audience with a simple and important analysis of the conflict, occuring in Utah

and all over the US. Using the statistic that I provided in my first paragraph, Graham helps the

audience understand how small the minority truly is in comparison to the total population in

those states. Imagining that only about 1 or 2 out of 100 people being someone that can relate to

them, can be an intimidating feeling that Graham wants them to understand and be aware of.

This really puts the reader on track to fully understanding the issue, sympathizing with the

minority, and hopefully assisting the minority in any little or big way they can.

In conclusion, Graham did an excellent job of first, using her target audience’s emotions

to drive their attention and energy to the issue, second gaining the trust from the reader as well as

establishing credibility, and finally providing numbers about how small the African-American

population really is in some of these states such as Utah, the likely state of a majority of her

audience as she represents Deseret News. Although I believe that she could have provided more

statistical reasoning in her piece, her outstanding and consistent use of pathos and ethos well

accomplished her goal behind “Black in a white state.”

Word Count: 1167

 Works Cited

Graham, J. (2020, June 23). Black in a white state. Deseret News. Retrieved December
31, 2021, from https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/6/22/21284419/black-white-
state-african-americans-racism-black-lives-matter-george-floyd