Wonders of the African World

The source I analyzed this week was an excerpt from Wonders of the African World by Henry Gates.  It was about the apathy, disconnect, and sometimes even contempt the African-American community has towards its homeland.  The author is Henry Louis Gates Jr, Cambridge and Yale graduate and awarded writer, educator, and intellectual.  Gates wrote the book to help the plight of African-Americans. That community has a different history from the rest of America and they are turning away from it.  I think he hoped to, by showing them that Africa isn’t all tribes and genocide, get African-Americans to reconcile with their heritage.  o   The situation of context that most accurately applies is occasion.  Henry Gates wrote this book to answer the question what do Black people have in common with Africans after a lifetime growing up with people who turned away from their ancestry.   I think the intended audience was people who try to distance themselves from their roots not just African-Americans.  The history of who we are can change the opportunities we have in life and our experiences so it’s important to hold a certain level of respect for where we come from.  One rhetorical tool Gates used with ethos.  He established himself as someone who could speak on both African-American apathy to heritage and to the richness of African roots.  He showed that he knew about how Black people turned away from their culture by referencing an “I ain’t left nuthin in Africa” award given at his family reunion and his daughters who were “unrepentantly American.”