Rhetorical situation

In the following pages we help you establish basic elements of the rhetorical situation of Anand Giridharadas’ TED talk “A tale of two Americas. And the mini-mart where they collided” from 2015.

The topic of the talk is the growing inequality in the US and the fact that the American Dream is now nothing but a dream. This is also the context or circumstances of Giridharadas’ talk. A large part of Americans are losing faith in a better future, partly because many are falling out of the middle class. As a consequence, people in the US become polarized in two very different groups: those who have hope for the future, and those who have lost faith in a better life with greater wealth and opportunities.

The speaker is writer and journalist Anand Giridharadas. He was born in the US to Indian immigrants who came to the US to live out their own American Dream. Giridharadas has spent time in India in his adult life, which benefits him as a speaker: He has first-hand experience with immigration and the American Dream and sees the broader perspective.

The direct audience of the talk are the people who have come to listen to it. TED audiences tend to be well-educated people with an interest in society and the world. However, since the medium is a TED talk, the potential audience is much wider as well as global; the talk was later made available for free on the TED website.