The song "Is It Because I'm Black?" by Syl Johnson, appeals to the emotions of his audience through his earnest tone and forthright lyrics. Johnson's song was made to address racial inequality between whites and blacks, and he does so frankly by posing the question "is it because I'm black?". This question appeals to pathos by causing his audience to ponder why (even after the civil rights movement in 1970 when this song was produced) blacks were still unequal. Verses in the song such as "wondering why my dreams never came true", "I want diamond rings and things too", and "something is holding me back" create a feeling of exclusion: that because of the color of his skin he cannot attain these things, making his audience feel like "black is a barrier". The tempo of this song is slow and when paired with the lyrics depicts an image of gradually moving forward and achieving equality and looking past the color of ones skin. At one point Johnson sings "they're holding us back, and it stairs the reason, that they're doing us like that", the "they" he refers to are whites who opposed equality. Here it's as though Johnson pulls his audience in agreement with him in blaming those who who "hold us back" because their skin is black. Toward the end of the song, Johnson encourages his fellow blacks to "keep on keeping on" leaving his audience feeling motivated to do just that.
- Jessica
I really like your analysis of pathos in this song, you really examined a lot of different aspects of the song and how they affect the audience. I particularly liked how you conjecture that the slow tempo of the song is meant to allude the slow, arduous process of African Americans achieving actual total equality. I thought that was very insightful and interesting. My only suggestion is maybe mention who his audience is. I know that's more of an audience analysis thing, but I feel like it would help this analysis if you just briefly examined the audience in a sentence or two. Also, you could maybe add a sentence at the end that sums up the overall pathos of the song, just to close the analysis out nicely.
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