Pathetic Pathetic Attempt

AIDS is serious business. There’s no question about that. It is an epidemic that has been rapidly growing in every country of the world. Some nations, especially developing ones, have taken harder hits than others. Melinda French Gates, wife of Bill Gates, in April 2004 published an article in The Seattle Times entitled “AIDS and India.” In her article, Gates ineffectively attempts to persuade financially stable countries, agencies and individuals to donate to the fight against AIDS by using the wrong tone, poor word choice and lack of imagery.

Gates’ argument and cause are terrific. AIDS is a very sensitive topic and has a lot of emotion attached to it. One would assume that an effective way to move people to act on such a cause would be to appeal to their emotions. This is why her rhetoric didn’t quite cut it. She chose to use a very neutral, somewhat dry tone. She lacks passion and gusto. She opens up the article describing how fast India is developing and how it is “on the brink of an AIDS catastrophe that could undermine the country’s potential for progress.” After this sentence, you start to get somewhat pumped until you read a little while later a sentence like this: “But I am hopeful that the nation can avoid disaster.” Well you know what? So is everyone else. Tell us something we don’t know. The word “hopeful” seems to me not only neutral, but very weak. All of us are hopeful, but we want to be more than that.

Admittedly, in the end of the article, she seems to have received a shot of fervor in her tone with sentences like “India urgently needs more clinics, more condoms, more testing, more information and more treatment…” and “…children will thrive, economies will boom, democracies will flourish and women like Gita really shall overcome.” But where was all that jazz in the rest of the article? Gates should have peppered the entire paper with enthusiastic appeals to build up emotion throughout the course of the reading, then capping it off with a specific and action inspiring conclusion. But instead, we are left to only dream of such an article. To handicap her grand finale even further, she throws a wrench into her own rhetorical gears. She begins to describe the foundation that she and her husband started, but by so doing she completely shifts the focus of the paper, talking of other diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria that can be prevented by vaccines. She also switches audiences. The article was originally written to the readers of The Seattle Times, but then says, “That is why it is so important that nations with emerging epidemics, like India, act now.” This takes the focus off of her original argument and audience in a very inopportune place in the article: preceding the conclusion. Even though the concluding paragraphs are very well written and use good diction, this is overpowered by this last minute switch of gears.

Basically all of Gates’ insufficiencies link back to one main problem: a lack of appealing to emotion. The second way that she shoots herself in the foot is by poor word choice. Over and over she used the title “sex worker” to describe an individual who sells their body to be used for the sexual pleasures of another person. There are many other words and techniques that can be used in place of the term “sex worker” that would definitely jerk at your emotions a little more. Not only that, but she didn’t even bother to mix it up a little bit. She uses the same redundancy with terms such as “empower women,” “mobile populations,” “truck drivers,” “stigma,” and so forth. All of these are phrases that were used on numerous occasions, but she never strayed from the original terminology. Would it have been so hard to go to the dollar store and buy a thesaurus? In order to get the reader excited, one must first keep his attention. And in order to keep his attention, one must vary the language, at least a little bit.

The title is a very important part of catching the reader’s eye and eventually winning their devotion. Gates’ title “AIDS and India” pretty much sums up her apathetic voice which later becomes evident if you bother to read further. It lacks position. It lacks zeal. And most of all it lacks that darn appeal to emotion that we keep talking about.

The final pitfall to the effectiveness of Mrs. Gates’ article is a lack of imagery. The author has been out in the field of research. She knows her stuff. She is trusted by her readers and has a certain amount of credibility already. She has had many experiences that have helped her to develop her argument. But she proves herself unavailing in depicting these events to the reader in such a way as to motivate him to a course of action. For example, she describes an occurrence that took place while she was investigating a district in Calcutta, India that was heavily populated with prostitutes: “I was particularly moved when, during my visit, several sex workers spontaneously started singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ As I listened to their Bengali-accented English, it became clear that the familiar lyrics were not just a dream for them.” Now you may be thinking to yourself, “That seems like it was off to a good start.” Yes she was off to a good start, but she seems to cut herself off abruptly. The following sentence reads, “By taking an active role in educating other sex workers and distributing condoms, these women are playing a vital role in making prevention work.” Talk about a cliff hanger. She says she was moved, but fails to move the rest of us. If she had put us in the very situation she was in, then maybe we could’ve felt what she felt. What are some of the words to the song? What was the setting? How were they dressed? With what emotion were they singing? All of these things would have helped her audience immensely to delve right into the picture. But instead we are left in the dark.

Another example of this inadequacy to bring the reader onto the stage is found when she states a potentially frightening fact. Her words are, “I was told by the leader of a support group for HIV-positive people that the stigma of AIDS — and the inferior status of women — is so strong that a woman whose husband dies of AIDS is often blamed for his death, and thrown out of the home with her children.” This is a horrific idea. But the way she phrases it makes it so much weaker than it has the potential to be. First of all, she tells it as second-hand information. Secondly, she uses no imagery whatsoever. Just imagine if she had described a situation, factual or not, where this had actually happened. Wouldn’t you just be up and out of your seat heading for the torch and pitchfork? It is imagery that really stirs up feelings and gets people up off their rear ends and out the door on a now self-motivated mission to change the world for the better. And it is a lack of imagery that is preventing Gates’ article from effectively convincing her audience to actually do what she is asking of them.

Pathetic appeals, especially when the issue is one of such great gravity as AIDS is, are of great importance. Emotion is what really persuades people to act. Melinda Gates, however, failed to do so because of an indifferent tone, bad choice of words, and an ignorance of the power of imagery. Although the author starts off with a certain amount of credibility due to her status and the status of her husband, her rhetorical faux pas rendered her persuasiveness feeble. And thus we see that the knowledge of the author is not the only thing that plays a role in the conversion of readers to a cause, noble as it may be.