Examples Of Racism In 12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men and Racism
12 Angry Men is a famous play and movie that was written by award-winning Reginald Rose. 12 Angry Men is a play in which the 12 members of a jury argue if a boy is innocent or guilty in a tight room, where some arguments become heated and aggressive. The author goes over several moral principles throughout the play. One of the main principles that Reginald Rose implements into his play, is that racial segregation and racism can cloud people’s views, even when deciding important matters. Racism shouldn’t cloud our judgement when deciding on what is right and wrong.
Racism could be a leading factor when deciding on certain matters. This can be clearly seen in the play specifically from juror ten. Juror ten is not the main protagonist or antagonist in the story, but is the greatest racist of all the jurors. He decides that the defendant is guilty, purely from the defendant’s race and where he is from. Juror ten’s racist views can especially be seen when he has a monologue around the end of the play. During this monologue he states, “Look, you know how those people lie. I don’t have to tell you. They don’t know what the truth is.” (336). Here you can clearly notice that instead of looking at the facts, Juror ten is just being racist, without knowing the

true personality of the defendant.
Out of all the jurors, the juror that tolerates racism the least is juror five. This is because juror five himself is from the slums like the defendant. The fact that juror five doesn’t tolerate racism can be seen when he stands up for juror eleven, when juror seven starts insulting juror eleven since he is from a foreign land. Juror five says, “It’s not all right!”(334) when juror eleven says it's OK, even if juror seven is insulting him. Juror five in general is a nice man, that hates racism, and is a role model on how people should act in society against racism. However, juror five does get emotional, and does not always sticks to facts. Either way, Juror five plays a key role in deciding on the defendant’s innocence, by giving key information about knife-fighting, and doubting what some of the witnesses said. Juror five unlike juror ten, doesn’t decide that the defendant is guilty due to his past, but instead thinks about the defendant’s harsh past, and votes that the defendant is not guilty.
Reading this play, it can be seen that racism is wrong.

Not only does it cloud one’s judgement, but may also hurt another’s feelings. Juror ten hurt the feelings of juror five, when he spoke that everyone from the slums were awful people. This can be seen when, juror five becomes angry and yells “I’ve lived in a slum all my life… There is something personal!” (318). Juror five has his feelings hurt from the words that juror ten says. Racism is clearly wrong, and is obvious when juror ten starts to bad-mouth people from the slums, and everyone ignores him, refusing to listen to juror ten’s biased and ethically wrong views. Racism is not morally accepted, and is not right to exist in

society.
I believe that the movie version of the play left a stronger impact than the original version, and portrays the theme in a more understanding way. This is because you can actually see the events unfold in a movie through visual representations. The fact that racism is wrong is a message people can easily interpret from the movie. In the movie, there are details which are not in the play, like props and other small details that allows the theme to be conveyed in a much stronger way. For example, in the play, the defendant is never shown, and there are not many details about the defendant himself. In the movie however, the defendant is portrayed as a puerto rican, a race that has been through severe prejudice in the past, and oftenly a common target for racism. Small details like these are what convey the theme in a clear manner to the audience, unlike the play. The movie in general was more easier to understand, because the audience was able to get a visual image of the scene, then just a written image, so it was easier to see what was going on.