Question

Which sentence in this excerpt from Jesse Jackson's "Common Ground and Common Sense" speech is an example of using ethos to persuade the audience?
I just want to take common sense to high places. If we can bail out Europe and Japan, if we can bail out Continental Bank and Chrysler . . . we can bail out the family farmer. I just want to make common sense. It does not make sense to close down 650,000 family farms in this country while importing food from abroad subsidized by the U.S. government. Let's make sense. It does not make sense to be escorting oil tankers up and down the Persian Gulf paying $2.50 for every $1.00 worth of oil we bring out while oil wells are capped in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. I just want to make sense. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of its day. What's the moral challenge of our day? We have public accommodations. We have the right to vote. We have open housing. What's the fundamental challenge of our day? It is to end economic violence. Plant closing without notice, economic violence. Even the greedy do not profit long from greed. Economic violence. Most poor people are not lazy. They're not black. They're not brown. They're mostly white, and female and young. But whether white, black, or brown, the hungry baby's belly turned inside out is the same color. Call it pain. Call it hurt. Call it agony. Most poor people are not on welfare. Some of them are illiterate and can't read the want-ad sections. And when they can, they can't find a job that matches their address. They work hard every day, I know. I live amongst them. I'm one of them.

A) If we can bail out Europe and Japan, if we can bail out Continental Bank and Chrysler . . . we can bail out the family farmer
B) It does not make sense to be escorting oil tankers up and down the Persian Gulf paying $2.50 for every $1.00 worth of oil we bring out while oil wells are capped in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana
C) We have public accommodations. We have the right to vote. We have open housing
D) But whether white, black, or brown, the hungry baby's belly turned inside out is the same color
E) They work hard every day, I know. I live amongst them. I'm one of them.

Answer 1

Answer: E) They work hard every day, I know. I live amongst them. I'm one of them.

Explanation: When writing, an author can use several rhetorical devices in order to persuade, inform or impact the audience in the desired way. Three of the must used rhetorical devices are ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos is an appeal to the audience's ethics, logos is an appeal to the audience's logic and pathos is an appeal to the audience's emotions. In the given excerpt from  "Common Ground and Common Sense" we can see an example of the use of ethos in the phrase "They work hard every day, I know. I live amongst them. I'm one of them" because the speaker is emphasizing in the fact that he understand and has lived the situation of which he is speaking, which makes him more believable.