Sawfat Saleem

One course video we saw in class was the ted talk by Safwat Saleem. In his ted talk he talks about his history being online and how the comments affected him due to his cultural background. One of the comments mentioned his Pakistani accent, which brought him back to his tough childhood growing up with an accent. Saleem wanted to let the audience know it was not easy for him to talk to the people he was surrounded by. He wanted to connect with anyone who had trouble speaking at a young age because of their accent and language barrier. Saleem did not tell his story to get pity from the audience, instead he used ethos to connect to them. He used his own personal credentials to tell his struggles growing up. For example in his ted talk he stated, “ I spent most of my childhood feeling that if I spoke, it would become more obvious that there was something wrong with me”.  He made sure he mentioned this issue many times throughout his talk about not feeling “normal”. He told us his insecurities as a young child and was afraid to let others in because of his accent and stutter. This ted talk was to encourage anyone who grew up with that language barrier and who felt ashamed for talking “different”. Saleem also wanted to speak to the commenters on the other side of the screen. He wanted to voice that not everyone grew up “ normal” and it is not okay to judge and make comments on one’s background.  

  During Saleem Ted talk, an artist, graphic designer and filmmaker, the crowd had lots of laughter and smiles. Saleem had created YouTube videos which were shown to the audience in different characters using his own voice but in different tones. He used his sarcasm to reflect on a comment made about his Pakistani accent which was mistaken for an Indian accent. While Saleem used ethos to get his point across, he also used pathos with that. By using pathos he managed to get the audience comfortable and wanting to hear more. He built a connection in a sense of trustworthy. He inspired the audience by using certain actions and language such as “panic”, “quiet”, and’ ‘awkward”. He explained his frustration and anger these comments made him feel and how it reflected on him and might have reflected on the audience as well. Looking back at the video I see the audience with a frown face while nodding their head. They felt sympathy and sorry that Saleem didn’t feel “ normal” growing up. He let the audience get in his shoes. Saleem used this as a scenario to show how such an easy thing was so hard for him due to his stutter, this made the audience feel more connected to his story and felt the way he did just by Saleem examples and language.

Saleem persuades the audience in creative but informal ways. He introduced his ted talk by adding facts and case studies related to current societies. Saleem used logos to achieve this. During his Ted Talk he stated “Only about 11 percent of the books had a character of color. And just the year before, that number was about eight percent, even though half of American children today come from a minority background.” Saleem mentioned this study to add on to his topic on being “ normal”. To let his audience see from his point of view and in a way everyone can relate, he used examples that might have affected themselves or loved ones.  He also mentioned racism. “ resumes with white-sounding names are more likely to get more callbacks than resumes with black-sounding names”. He stated this fact because society thinks discrimation is normal. He argues society thinks this way because that’s how they grew up, seeing pictures, movies with people of the same color. Going back to the children’s books, he stated these studies to build up his final conclusion. What is normal to people and what is normal to him and the audience. He concluded his statement with facts that everyone has a different normal and he let the audience get a sense of that. This ted talk was for immigrants or even people who have social anxiety.  Not everything has to be ” normal” because normal does not exist in society. It’s the way people persuade it to be and they can change that.