Article Review Of Jonathan Rauch's In Defense Of Prejudice

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In the article “In Defense of Prejudice: Why Incendiary Speech Must Be Protected” by Jonathan Rauch, Rauch attempted to justify his point on prejudice by saying, “…the last thing society should do is seek to utterly eradicate racism and other forms of prejudice.” I personally very much disagree with the steps Rauch proposed. Eradicating/Containing racism is the best idealistic step to take in order to make the future generation of the minority group live without having to worry about daily negativities from the society in my opinion. The media have a great deal of power in the world today. As a result of this, media has grown into a business that shares anything they think will obtain them ratings and makes them money to keep the business …show more content…

Brent Staples (1999) stated in the article that we only see drug busts in the ghetto and never in the suburbs. This leads to more suspicions on African-Americans, which then leads to more arrests. The author found only 5 arrests are made for every 100 white addicts, but 20 arrests for every 100 black addicts, while the utmost conservative estimates suggest that white intravenous drug users outnumber black users by at least 5 to 1. Cracking down on the ghettos and arresting African-Americans will only reinforce the stereotype that blacks are drug addicts. This will then lead to more arrests every time they are caught with any type of drugs, while a white person could be given a warning for the same charges. This will only make African-Americans more vigilant and scared to go out in public with peace of mind without having to look over their shoulders and for them to operate out without having to worry about getting arras for any stop and search. I only know this as I’ve seen this before. I was at Venice beach with a couple of my friends one afternoon, and an officer stopped two black males on the sidewalk. They happened to have weed on them; the officer arrested them and took them in. A few minutes later, a white male was walking and holding hands with his girlfriend, another officer stopped them and they happen to have weed on them too, I watched as the officer only gave them a ticket. This proves that African-Americans have a higher chance of getting arrested for the same drug charges compare to white. This will only put African-Americans at much higher risk of getting arrested and put in jail. Only the negative information is being shared on the media never the

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