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Mohammad Alom
Professor Collins
ENGL 1301
13 April 2017

ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union is an organization, and their prime focus is to defend the

rights of individuals according to the law United States of America. In 2000, they published a

visual advertisement titled 2000 American Civil Liberties Union, reflecting that the man on

the left is 75 times more likely to be stopped by the police while driving than the man on the

right (ACLU). There were two pictures; the left was Martin Luther King Jr, and on the right was

Charles Manson. There was also some data on the poster that shows white people are less likely

to be perceived as a criminal than people from another races, especially African Americans. This

advertisement was created for minorities who are being deprived from their rights. According to

nobelprize.org, Martin Luther King was a black activist who worked for the civil rights for the

member of his own race. He proclaimed the rights of black people to vote. He was arrested more

than twenty times and also assaulted few times, but he never looked back until he established the

proper rights for the black people as a human being. He also wrote several books on civil rights

and was awarded honorary degrees. He got the Noble Prize when he was only thirty-five years

old; and become not only an honorable leader of the black people, but also an icon for the whole

world (nobelprize.org). According to biography.com, Charles Manson was a white American cult

leader, who involved in all types of criminal activities including murder. He and his followers

brutally murder several people. He was in prison for ten years that even could not decrease his

criminal activities. Most of his followers began to believe, that he claimed himself as Jesus and
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his prophecy was a race war (biography.com). Charles Mansons behavior and attitude towards

people was totally opposite of Martin Luther King Jr. Both of the pictures were used in this

visual advertisement to describe that criminals should not be defined by their skin color. Some

people still believe in race war and differentiate others by their ethnicity and race. The purpose of

this visual ad is to get support from minorities by donating money to their organization. Ethos,

logos, and pathos of American Civil Liberties Unions visual advertisement demonstrates that

people should not be prejudiced by their skin color and race.

Ethos is established in the visual argument to increase the awareness of human rights and

avoid racism. American civil liberties union is an organization which is working on human rights

and racial justice for almost hundred years. In the United States, racism has decreased

remarkably, but still racial minorities are being discriminated every day while they drive, shop,

travel, walk, and pray. ACLU keeps fighting for those racial minorities, and color of people to

the extreme level of the government. ACLU is a nationwide organization that has affiliate in

every state and altogether it has more than 1.2 million members. ACLU is one of the biggest non

profitable social organizations that conduct their work through about 300 staff attorneys with

nearly 2000 volunteer attorneys can holding in about 2000 case every year. In 1954, the ACLU

joined forces with the NAACP to challenge racial segregation in public schools that ended the

era of separate but equal was a major victory for racial justice(ACLU). People can donate

money by signing-up through their websites to support their activity. Ethos is beneficial in

proving that majority of their work focused on the equality for the people of color, women, and

the minority groups of various racial people.

Logos is used in the advertisement to elaborate the fact that people are being deprived by

the color of skin and race, even though they are the minority. In Florida eighty percent of those
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stopped and searched were black and Hispanic, while they constituted only five percent of all

drivers (ACLU). Police are more likely to search of black or Hispanic peoples vehicles, while

they pool over them. Some of the white police have initial premature judgment about the black

and Hispanic people, that they are criminal. In some of the white families this type of prejudiced

attitudes being carrying out from one generation to another. According to ucr.fbi.gov, in 2013,

the highest percentage of the people arrested for all types of criminal activities were white and

the figure was 68.9 percent. On the other hand, 28.3 percent of the people were arrested for

criminal activities in 2013 were black (ucr.fbi.gov). Logos is important in proving that there is no

reason to believe, that the color of skin can differentiate between the criminals and innocents.

Pathos is established in the visual to describe a shocking matter that instead of considering

how minorities are contributing to the society, they are treated as criminal. In the United States,

police stop drivers based on their skin color rather than the way they are driving (ACLU). This is

a matter of disgrace and against the constitution of law. In 2015, Garca, Jennifer Jee-Lyn and

Mienah Zulfacar Sharif published an article titled Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on

Racism and Public Health, that Recently, Eric Garner and an adolescent boy Michel Brown shot

to death by white police officers. Both of them were black and unarmed at the time of the

incidence. Both of the white police officers who were responsible for the death of those two

black people never get charged with any crime. These examples shows that how racism still

differentiating the value of people according to their race. Some of the raciest would claim that,

black people are criminal by born. If their point of view is right, then Barak Obama could never

become the president of the United States. People should understand the advantages of diversity,

rather than differentiating themselves based on their color and ethnicity. In the United States,

diversity encourages innovation and increase the ability to identify new market place that
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contributes to the economy; and those diversified people are the minority groups including

African American black people. (Garca, Jennifer Jee-Lyn and Mienah Zulfacar Sharif). Pathos is

useful in proving, that in this racial hierarchic society, white lives are constitutionally valued

over minorities lives.

In some places of the United States minorities are being treated as burden of the society.

American Civil Liberties Union had been fighting for their rights over the last hundred years by

advertising, and other form of social activities. In this ad, ethos, logos, and pathos persuaded

people to believe in equality rather than practicing racism that also appealing towards minorities

to supports their activities by donation.

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Works cited

Charles Manson-murderer. Biography.com, 2017,

http://www.biography.com/people/charles-manson-9397912. Accessed April.13 2017.
Crime in the United States in 2013. Ucr.fbi.gov, 2013,
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-43. Accessed
April. 13 2017.
Garca, Jennifer Jee-Lyn and Mienah Zulfacar Sharif. "Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on
Racism and Public Health." American Journal of Public Health, vol. 105, no. 8, Aug. 2015
pp. e27-e30. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302706. Accessed April. 13 2017.
Join People Power - ACLU's Grassroots Volunteer Resistance Movement. Aclu.org, 2017,
https://www.aclu.org/. Accessed April.13 2017.
Martin Luther King jr..nobelprize.org, 2017,
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html. Accessed
April. 13 2017.