DeMasi 1

Dylan De Masi
Period 2
Becker
Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Jim Crow Policing, published in the New York Times, by Bob Herbert, shows his
strong belief that the New York police department needs to be restrained by their racial profiling
actions. Herbert purpose on the article is to inform the public, mainly in New York, that the
police are discriminating against minorities just because of the color of their skin. Herbert
supports his ideas with being a experienced author, appealing to the public with emotional
reasoning and using logical evidence.
The authors credibility contributes to how he gets the purpose of the article to
reach the audience. Herbert's career as a writer in many newspapers nationwide as well as the
New York times shows that he has the expertise to write on the subject. As the article focuses on
the problem in New York, where the article was written gives it a sense of being more reliable to
the audience. The racial profiling demonstrated in the situations from the article are targeted on
minorities, as Bob Herbert is an African American giving him similarities with the audience to
help persuade them on his opinion of the topic as he can have experience or stronger feelings
about it rather then someone who has an outside view. The strong call to action to start of the
article, The New York Police Department needs to be restrained. gives the reader belief that the
author feels strongly on the topic and will provide strong reasoning. Lastly the many statistics
throughout the article show that there is accurate information to help support the main idea.

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Herbert also has a strong use of pathos in his article to help persuade the audience
by appealing to their emotions. He provides details that provoke pity, loaded language, stories,
subjective reporting, and many more strategies and devices that develop pathos. Details that
provoke pity include, The nonstop humiliation of young black and Hispanic New Yorkers,
including children, by police officers who feel no obligation to treat them fairly or with any
respect at all is an abomination. (Herbert par.1). This example arouses the idea of pity on the
subject to appeal to numerous emotions by the readers; the fact that police target children as
suspects just because of their skin color can be viewed as amiss as well as viewing the police
officers being even more concerned with minorities as they rather stop children for no reason
then look for other laws being broken by any other race. Another main strategy Herbert uses is
telling real life stories on the subject. A major one he uses is, Deon Dennis was stopped and
searched while standing outside the apartment building in which he lives in Harlem. The police
arrested him, allegedly because of an outstanding warrant. He was held for several hours then
released. There was no outstanding warrant. (Herbert par.11). This appeals to emotion as it can
have the audience feel shame for the police department as it shows clear evidence of racial
profiling, and sympathy to minorities being they cant just live their daily lives like everything
else.
Lastly, Herbert's well developed use of logic plays an important role in persuading the
audience. While there are many devices that Herbert uses to develop logos, the two that made a
substantial impact on the audience are objective reporting details, and the use of statistics. An
example of his objective reporting would be, Rather than a legitimate crime-fighting tool, these

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stops are a despicable, racially oriented tool of harassment. (Herbert par.5). As one of the main
ideas in the article, it might seem subjective but it is not. There is support throughout that
passage that upholds this statement making it non-biased by the author, which includes stories,
statistics, facts, etc.. As that has to be supported by other evidence to be true, statistics are more
straight forward facts. An essential statistic he uses is, An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops
in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers. (Herbert par.3).
There isn't much to argue about that, as it is a fact, whether or not the reader approves it, it is true
so they have to accept it and consider the idea that the police in New York can be using racial
profiling against minorities.
Herbert uses strong rhetorical strategies throughout the article to persuade the reader to
agree with his belief, being that the New York police department needs to be restrained by their
racial profiling actions. With every supportive devices from ethos, pathos, and logos the
audiences view on the subject should've changed by the the end of the article.

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