Colored People: A Memoir is told from the paradoxical perspective; Gates speaks from the outlook of a boy with insight from his adult self. Through a rhetorical analysis of this text, it can be observed that Gates frequent use of colloquialisms and periodical detachment from academic diction allows him to create common ground between him and his daughters whom the book is dedicated to.
He approaches the memoir with mixed emotions and focuses on the present and its contrast to the past as he compares his daughter’s privileged lives and detachment from their heritage to the lives of African-Americans in days of ubiquitous racism. Gates effectively utilizes rhetoric and self-exploration to piece together what identity is exactly and how it affects
