Critical Essay on Controversial Advertisement: Make Peace Not War

Introduction

There are many advertisements produced aired per day both controversial and non-controversial. Never the less, this advertisement will be controversial because even though it aims to end the war between the African American and the white policemen, it trivializes the past trauma of the African Americans. The advertisement is titled: Make Peace Not War and the target is the warring policemen and African Americans in America

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The Advertisement

In the advertisement, the company took footage from the video of the black lives matters was converted to a new video with pictures of celebrity of African American origin beating police for the involvement in killing a black man. LeBron is seen beating Zimmerman by hitting him with a blunt object on the head shouting, "This is America, the land of the free." Before Zimmerman fell, he shouted, "I am an advocate of global peace, unity, and understanding". The advertisement is controversial because the picture was taken from a mother group's wall and edited for use by another group over controversial issues. The most disturbing thing is that theme and the content. Instead of protestors shouting in happiness for the death of their nemesis, they were shouting in anger saying "blue lives mater" for the cruel way LeBron was mistreating Zimmerman. The advertisement shows the protestors angry instead of smiling, laughing, clapping and hugging each other. Immediately, LeBron turned and chased away the other onlooking police officers saying, "you are just a bunch of child killers" In the background was a song by Childish Gambino's "This Is America" which alludes to the extrajudicial killing of the unarmed African American by the police and in the end. The words this is America is shown as it fades to black

Analysis of the Use of Logical Fallacies to Appeal to and Manipulate

The advertise combines rhetoric's and stylistic devices to create logical fallacies. In the advertisement's irony is used to create a setting and the tone. For example, instead of the protestors crying in happiness that African American killer police have been killed by an African American. The protestors want to lynch the African American, LeBron for beating Zimmerman who allegedly killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012.

Appeal to fear (argumentum in terrorem) by using the picture of Zimmerman, the advertisement wanted to create fear in the protestors. Zimmerman was implicated in the murder of an innocent African American and his arrogant talks after the murder shows that he was never bothered by the death of more African American. He was used in the content of the advertisement to create fear in the protestors.

Begging the question is another fallacy used in the advertisements. Zimmerman was innocent and should not have been beaten by LeBron because the African American protestors who should have been castigating Zimmerman and rebuking Zimmerman were against LeBron who was beating him. It begs to question whether Zimmerman killed an unarmed African American boy. The people should have been in support of LeBron beating Zimmerman, instead, they castigated LeBron for beating Zimmerman.

Personal-attack is also other galas used I the advertise. For example, instead of LeBron questioning Zimmerman who he killed the boy, or if he participated in killing the boy, LeBron just descended upon aimer man with a blunt object. Even though he was wrong for attacking Zimmerman, LeBron attacked Zimmerman because he was a white man and because of his public's remarks. It is also important to note that Zimmerman had already been acquitted of the murder so LeBron had to reason to attack him. The court made the decision to acquit Zimmerman based on evidence. LeBron had to evidence that Zimmerman was guilty. It was just based on hearsay and euphoria

Hasty generalization is another fallacy that was used LeBron when he was chasing the police officers that were looking at him beating Zimmerman. he argued that since Zimmerman was a police officer who killed a black boy, the other policemen were just like Zimmerman as they are all children killers. Lebron generalized the mate that Zimmerman made to all the other police officers not knowing that that are also good police officers who are morally brougham and are professionals on their approach to issues. Generalization without examining facts is fallacious because it demonizes everyone in groups instead of considering each one individually. LeBron made a major mistake in his decision based on his generalized statement that all police are murderers. The statement can make the public hate all policemen even the innocent ones (Gracia 3).

Importance of Being Able to Identify Logical Fallacies

The advertisement was fallacious because it was trivializing the war against extrajudicial killings because Zimmerman who is alluded in the advertisement was one of the main police officers that were accused of extrajudicial killings of the unarmed black men. The advertisement may have been meant to create peace by rebuking those who operate under the maxim of "An eye for an eye", "a tooth for a tooth" (Field 303)). Nevertheless, by using the African American to rebuke their fellow African American beating white police for killing an African American is like trivializing the killing at a time when tempers are raging and wounds have not healed.

It is important to be able to identify the fallacies in the advertisements because the advertisements were manipulating the feelings of the audience without employing logic (Kreider 78). Using African American's pictures as they cringe at the way LeBron was beating Zimmerman and rebuking him for the brutality. Logical thinking should not involve feelings the way the advert was appealing to pity.

Fallacies also detract people from the argument. The main argument as at the time the adverts were aired was the rampant extrajudicial killings of the unarmed African Americans. The advertisement does not address the main topic by educating police officers. Instead, the advertisement is protecting the police offices (blue lives matter) using the pity on the faces of the African American's in the picture. the adverts advocates for the exposure of the unarmed African American to murderous policemen which is wrong.

Conclusion

The advertisement presented a questionable reason to sustain their argument for the protection of the blue lives at the expenses of the black lives. Trivializing the black lives matters movement and using the image of the black protestors to rebuke their fellow black man to retaliating against a murderer is wrong, and demonstrate ignorance in the part of the advertisers and leads to misinformation of the audiences. Such ambiguous messages may be believed on the face value who do not understand the fallacious contents. However, those who understand fallacies can easily identify the fallacy from the premises.

Works Cited

Field, Matt. "A Logical Fallacy: Commentary on Moss Et Al.". European Addiction Research, vol 19, no. 6, 2013, pp. 303-304. S. Karger AG, doi:10.1159/000348427.

Gracia, Eduard. "On the Power And Weakness Of Rational Expectations: Logical Fallacies, Periodic Bubbles, And Business Cycles". SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012, p. 21. Elsevier BV, doi:10.2139/ssrn.2087932.

Kreider, A. J. "Informal Fallacies as Abductive Inferences". Logic and Logical Philosophy, vol 21, no. 11, 2016, p. 78. Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika/Nicolaus Copernicus University, doi:10.12775/llp.2016.001.

Rosen, Frederick. "The Philosophy of Error and Liberty Of Thought: J.S. Mill On Logical Fallacies". Informal Logic, vol 26, no. 2, 2008, p. 121. University of Windsor Leddy Library, doi:10.22329/il. v26i2.440.