Dispositio and Lynching

Part 1
For this short assignment, I chose to analyze Ida Wells-Barnett’s speech, “Lynch Law in America. According to Ross Winterowd’s article "Dispositio: The Concept of Form in Discourse,” Wells-Barnett’s speech is a classical form of oration. According to Winterowd, the classical oration made up of 5 different segments. "Exordium to gain the audience's attention, narratio to state the speaker's case, confirmatio to prove that case, reprehensio to refute the opponent's case and peroratio to sum up" (Winterowd p. 40). Winterowd goes on to tell his audience that by having this arrangement is what helps to create meaning in a piece of an argument. Wells-Barnett's speech manages to arrange her topic in a similar pattern as Winterrowd explains. Her exordium, the hook she uses to gain the readers attention, is at the beginning of the article when she states “OUR country’s national crime is lynching” (Wells-Barnett). By putting the word “our” in all capital letters, she stresses the idea of how the readers of American people could help make the change. Her narratio is where she manages to outline her speech by pointing out the gross injustice that lynching is. Showing the readers that lynching is something she is proposing be banned. For her comfirmatio, she provides readers with factual information regarding the statisics of lynching. Wells-Barnett uses tables in her speech to show the difference in lynching numbers between states. She uses her data to point out that many of the states that before the Emancipation Proclamation were considered slave states had a higher total of lynchings as opposed to “free states.”In her peroratio, Wells-Barnett wraps up her argument by explaining how Americans should feel guilty for supporting the lynching law for as long as they have. She explains how other countries may begin to do the same. Wells-Barnett uses her voice and authority to clearly show that because the United States had no real laws against lynching at the time, which many countries, such as France, were following in our footsteps. Wells-Barnett tries to clearly address this issue and that it must be stopped and banned before it creates a global issue.

Part 2

An issue I wish to explore is handicap accessibility on campus. I have found that on the IUB campus there is limited number of accessible entrances for people with disabilities. It is not fair that people with disabilities have only one option to enter a building, where able bodied people have numerous and faster ways of entering buildings all over campus. Therefore it takes longer and requires more effort for people with disabilities to get to class or their destination. People with disabilities do not always want to rely on others for simple assistance such as getting to class or meetings. I believe that this issue deserves attention because people with disabilities are becoming more mainstreamed and it is our duty to make that transition as easy as possible. My proposal is to target the office of Disabilities Services for Students to create more accessible entrances to buildings all over campus.