A rhetoric of love: A will to push back

From the time Black folks arrived on the shores of America, they have been indoctrinated into Western Culture, including Christianity. From the time. As a result, much of their African culture has been displaced. Yet there remains Kemeticism, Ma'at, and Nommo, parts of African culture. I arguer that for Black folks to gain their full humanity, it will be necessary for them to understand their African roots, particularly when it comes to the power of the spoken word. Within this dissertation, then, I focus on how Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X infused Western rhetoric with elements of Nommo to get their message across. By understanding the elements of Nommo, African Americans will have a better understanding of the need to love themselves, and with that understanding will have the tools to gain the confidence and courage to push back against the inequalities they face. Because Blacks have had fewer opportunities to become educated, they have relied on their emotional selves, their ethos and pathos, to communicate. Conversely, because white folks have had more opportunities to become educated, they are more logocentric. If we are going to become more harmonized as a society, Black people will have to become more comfortable with their cerebral selves and white people will have to become more comfortable with their emotional selves. If this can be accomplished, the chances of living in harmony are increased, and all of humanity will benefit.