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Lauren Cohen

Dr. Harris Cox

ENGL 1011 H03

27 September 2018

Rhetorical Analysis

In the article, “Feds: Racial Profiling is bad... except at the airport and the border,” Dana

Lind talks about the new standards of allowed racial profiling. She presents the new case that

explains how racial profiling is allowed at the border and in airports. She defines the key terms

of profiling, security, and the standards. She includes graphs of the US and pictures of people in

airports and at the border. Her purpose is to get people to see understand why racially profiling

others is okay in some situations.

Dana Lind is a senior reporter for Vox magazine. She has covered stories about Canadian

immigration and about police shootings. Lind also made a show with her other colleagues called

Weeds. I question whether she was assigned to write on this topic or if she chose this topic out of

her own interest. Vox is new site for the 21st centry. They post a lot of articles for a wide variety

of subjects. They have a lot of adds on their website, which makes people draw attention to other

the website and the advertisement. It can suggest that the website should not be taken seriously.

The audience for the article would most likely be for the people who fear their safety from the

terrorist attacks and immigration problems. The article is written to sooth the peoples feeling and

make them feel safe for a new method of protection.


Lind’s article has a great use of kairos. The article was published in early December of

the year 2014. During that year, many shooting and terrorist threats happened in the USA such

as: Overland Park Jewish Community Center, the Las Vegas Shooting, and many shootings by

the sole participant Ali Muhammad Brown. Another most important event that happened in 2014

was the American immigration crisis. There were many numbers of unaccompanied women and

children coming into the United States from the northern part of Central America. Therefore, at

the time, many people feared the “national security” of the United States. This would make the

argument seem strong in that sense of relating to the situation at hand.

The strongest method that Dana Lind used was relating the content to create pathos based

off the kairos of the argument. Since many shootings and illegal immigration happened during

that time, bringing up the argument itself is sensitive for people. The argument makes people

think about how their country could be vulnerable and needs protection. She also inserted a

photograph of many people in the security checkpoint line at the airport. The photo shows

women with their children and older people. The image builds the emotion on the audience to

want to feel secure. It makes them accept the idea of racial profiling because it will keep them

and their country safe. When she uses this method of making people believe racially profiling is

okay, it could be manipulative. It may be making people go against their beliefs of treating

everyone equally because they fear their own safety within the country. It could also be a

downfall because it makes people not think about how the other people are treated because they

would only be focused on their own safety.

Another main approach by the author was the format of the article to make it simple for

the audience. The type of media, being an article posted on an online magazine website, was

already made to reach a mass group of people. Lind makes it easier by formatting the article in a
question-answer style. She bolds the questions for the headings, then proceeds to answer and

explain the questions underneath. The questions, such as: “Why does the federal government

allow profiling at all?", "What were the old federal standards for racial profiling?”, “What has

changed under the new standards?” and “So when is profiling still allowed?”, are questions that

the readers would ask in their own head. In a way, this is a tactic of logic because the audience

would see the answers to the questions as a logical standpoint which in return would make

people further accept racial profiling since they are getting solid answers.

Relating to the previous approach, a method Dana Lind used was using the questions to

also establish formal definitions. The questions help define the words “profiling”, “standards",

and “area of allowed profiling.” Instead of straight out giving the definition, she bolds the

questions and words to draw attention to the then and follow up by explaining the meaning of the

context in her own view.

Although the previous methods were in relating with the appeal logos. Dana Lind only

had two obvious examples of logos in her argument. She provides two graphs of the United

States. One graph shows the “Free Zone of the United States.” At the bottom of the graph, it

states the statistic that “2 out of 3 Americans (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the

US land and coastal boarders.” The purpose of her graph is to say that even though majority of

the population in the United States does not live in a zone that allows racial profiling, they are all

surrounded by it which would give people more of a reason to use it. The other graph shows the

states that do not ban racial profiling. Twenty American states do not ban racial profiling. This

means a lot of the people in American can still racial profiling and get away with it. It persuades

more people to do it because they do not feel they will get in trouble from it. The bad part of the

logos presented is that it does not give the audience a solid fact of how racial profiling does
work. It only gives the audience a reason of why they should do it but no results to show the

positive effect on the nation from doing it.

Majority of the argument is produces with the appeal of ethos. The use of the word

"“federal” and mentioning major legal stances like “Department of Justice” and “Border Control

Agents” are well used through the paper. She uses many pictures of the airport, one showing the

TSA agents in their uniforms with their badges to show the real people who will be doing racial

profiling. She also brings in the names of President Bush administration, Supreme Court, a

Sherriff of a county in the border zones that allow racial profiling. This stong reliance on ethos

strengthens her argument because it can persuade people to believe that racially profiling people

is acceptable if the federal government does it themselves. This pushes the audience to try racial

profiling themselves for the excuse that the federal people are doing it, so they should too to

protect their own security.

Dana Lind’s whole argument is based on a bandwagon effect. She sets up her appeals and

strategies to make people want to racially profiling others because leaders of authority such as

the national border guards and the TSA agents in airports do it. It gives people a reason and a

backup defense that they are doing it out of the fear for their own “security” and to do it because

everyone else is.


Works Cited

Lind, Dana. “Feds: Racial profiling is bad... except at airport and the border.” Vox, 24 Dec. 2014,

https://www.vox.com/2014/12/8/7351285/racial-profiling Accessed 20 Sept. 2018.

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