Young's Common Denominators

When I was a freshman here I was told by an older student that in previous years the university had never honored Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I’m from metro Detroit where it’s pretty standard to get the day off school and not expect the smaller businesses to be open. So I have to admit that I went to Dr. Young’s speech basically turned off to the entire thing, being under the impression that Clemson’s “long tradition” of honoring Dr. King was really only four years old. (Is that true?) After discussing the less-than-honorable tradition of Clemson founders today in class, I am even more skeptical that perhaps the school wasn’t somehow coerced into putting on the production in order to appear politically correct. Irregardless, Dr. Young was certainly effective in addressing his crowd – a mixed-race conglomeration of college students, middle-aged and older adults, children, and students from all grades. Dr. Young’s effectiveness had as much to do with his delivery as it did with his content; since we can assume that he has delivered many speeches already and can execute them well from practice, I wanted to point out how the content of Dr. Young’s message was one of common denominators, to bring his mixed crowd to a place where they could see eye to eye and thus perhaps be more apt to work together. A powerful example of the common denominator factor was Dr. Young’s mention of the army; for Clemson especially, (as we were also discussing in class) it is a beautiful illustration to point out that desegregation first occurred in the army. The reason being, of course, that a nation which cannot fight together inevitably cannot remain a nation. Another comment made by Dr. Young was, “We are almost always in danger of perishing together as fools,” pointing out that foolishness is not a one-sided thing, but that perishing together is its result and is not a good choice when you can move forward together. In order to do that, a choice must be made by all parties to work together. Talking of peace was a common denominator, too; war is a tiring thing for a nation and its people, and a tragic thing. Dr. Young even mentioned women’s rights when talking about Rwanda’s new government, eventually piquing the interest of most everyone in the audience as he continued. Poulakos says that a good rhetor will cause his audience to dream, and to look forward – Dr. Young artfully performed this, and addressed everyone in the audience when he said that he sees cell phones as hope. Most all Americans under the age of 50 probably have cell phones, but especially on a college campus where a cell phone is often the only contact number a student will have, the choice of example was particularly effective. (It was a little ironic that three cell phones went off virtually at the same time earlier on, though!) As college students, and Dr. Young said this too, we are the hope for America to continue the “silent movement” and bring true equal rights to bear. I wasn’t bothered, then, by the seeming lack of direction that many students mentioned in class; I think Dr. Young may have gone off on tangents in order to capture as many “strays” (that is, people who weren’t really interested yet in hearing what he had to say) as possible so that his message could clearly be heard.