Rhet Analysis of Race

I was thinking about the different arguments that go along with rhetoric, primarily ethos-- and how it connects to the concept of race. I gave a presentation yesterday to my class on race itself, and came across a thought or two:

*Ethos and race: Race can either give you instant credibility or instant rejection. Ie. if a professor who teaches the German language gets up in front of class and was actually born and raised in Germany, that right there will give a certain amount of credibility to their name, even if their parents only spoke English and they went to an all-English school. If a hearing teacher gets up in front of a sign language class, they've already lost credibility with the Deaf community because they are not Deaf. Granted, they may have been a CODA or have a deaf spouse, but until those details are discovered, people will act based on their assumptions. (I know the Deaf are not usually recognized as a "race", but culturally, it has the same implications, and they're their own minority.)

*People will give more credibility to a news broadcast saying it's searching for "an islamic militant" with a picture of a guy with a black beard and native dress than a picture of a very white american in a button-up shirt with scholarly-looking glasses.

*People will give more credibility to leaders who are like them, or at least fit in the group; ie. a black leader would hold more sway in a black-rights movement gathering than a Chinese man.

It's funny how we put so much stock in appearances, and ignore the finer details... People are very funny creatures.