Blog Post #2

Hello readers! In my last post, I focused on the content of Tatum’s writing in her book, Why Are
All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?. Today, I decided to focus on her writing style,
mainly being the rhetorical strategies she uses to keep readers not only engaged but to keep them from
getting offended over this rather touchy subject.

Tatum does a great job of achieving the latter in her book, which I feel is the main purpose of her
writing style because she has an audience of mainly non-colored people, and must be aware of the
sensitive subject that is racism. 

Her appeal to the audience’s ethos is what makes this achievable, which is shown in the introductory
section of the book, where she talks extensively about her ethnicity, her career, and her constant
mentioning of being a university professor, mainly focusing on the psychology of racism. By establishing
her credibility on the topic, it makes some of the sensitive topics in the book easier to take in rather than
making the assumption that she is trying to antagonize white people. 

Tatum also supports her book with an impressive amount of research, which is noticeable while reading
and can also be found in the 40-page notes section about her research and the 27-page bibliography,
both at the end of the book. 

This is her obvious appeal to the audience’s logos, which is necessary considering, again, the sensitivity
of the topic, to prove that her research and knowledge shared in the book are purely logical, rather than
bias-based. 

Throughout the book, Tatum has a very professional and knowledgable tone, which in addition to her
appeals to the audience’s ethos and logos, allow her to achieve her purpose of informing her largely
non-colored audience about the underlying racism in society without making anyone feel self-conscious
about their ethnicity or antagonized. 

Personally, I find her writing style extremely engaging. Being white, I had anticipated feeling
significantly worse while reading this than I do, but her writing style is very effective. I feel that
with this topic, she could not have done a better job while still getting across the information that she
needed to. 

Today’s post was very informational, a harsh contrast to my last post, which analyzed some of the
concepts in her book. Hopefully, next time I will be able to hop back on the conceptual side and write
for you more of my thoughts on her ideas.

Thanks for reading!