“Discrimination” by Kenneth Rexroth is a poem about his strong negative view of the entire human race. He points out specific instances in his everyday routine where he really despises what humans do.The poem's significant elements Rexroth implemented is tone, lyric poem, and caesura, which make a huge contribution to his strong negative view of the human race. Rexroth has been using a strong tone to show his negative feeling throughout the poem of the entire human race. Rexroth describes the human race’s art negatively with powerful words which starts to end the poem with a strong negative tone. “Their art is interesting, but certainly barbarous” (Rexroth 16-17). The tone here is negative because of Rexroth’s use of “barbarous,” which demonstrates
A poem interpretation lays in the person’s capability to understand and take human emotions and each poem has multiple readings, and every person who reads a poem will interpret it differently.Racism ,a misconception or a myth?” The collection of poems "I'm not racist but..." by Anita Heiss shows how racism is embedded in the human race and although not always spoken is there hidden and ready to hurt people. Anita Heiss ’s poetry collection is emphasising the permanence and the anger felt by the victims of racism . The poem raises awareness about racism as an ongoing problem.
In 1973 a thirty-three year-old Caucasian male named Allan Bakke applied to and was denied admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. In 1974 he filed another application and was once again rejected, even though his test scores were considerably higher than various minorities that were admitted under a special program. This special program specified that 16 out of 100 possible spaces for the students in the medical program were set aside solely for minorities, while the other 84 slots were for anyone who qualified, including minorities. What happened to Bakke is known as reverse discrimination. Bakke felt his rejections to be violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, so he took the University of California Regents to the Superior Court of California. It was ruled that "the admissions program violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment"1 The clause reads as follows:"...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor without due process of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."2 The court ruled that race could not be a factor in admissions. However, they did not force the admittance of Bakke because the court could not know if he would have been admitted if the special admissions program for minorities did not exist.
Discrimination in the Short Stories, Harrison Bergeron, after you my dear Alphonse, and The Lottery
Have you ever been turned away or discriminated by another being? Patricia Williams was and she wrote about it in “The Death of the Profane: The Rhetoric of Race and Rights”. Williams was discriminated by an employee at a Benetton in New York because of her skin color. She was told the store was closed at 1:00pm while there were still others in the store. Williams created a poster about her rage and posted outside Benetton when it was truly closed. She attempted to write a story but her race, rage, and the stores name was edited out of her paper. Williams convinced them to put her race back into her story, she then spoke at a convention and talked about her experience at Benetton and the struggles of getting her story published. Williams is
The world today can sometimes be a hard place to live, or at least live in comfort. Whether it be through the fault of bullies, or an even more wide spread problem such as racism, it is nearly impossible to live a day in the world today and feel like it was only full of happiness and good times. Due to this widespread problem of racism, often times we tend to see authors go with the grain and ignore it, continuously writing as if nothing bad happens in the world. Fortunately, Claudia Rankine, is not one of these authors. Rankine manages to paint a vivid picture of a life of hardships in her lyric Citizen: An American Lyric. In this lyric Claudia Rankine shows that she truly has a very interesting and not commonly used approach to some literary
In the article, “On Being the Target of Discrimination”, written by Ralph Ellison, the use of pathos and ethos is used to convey the message of discrimination. As well as imagery to portray segregation in a very different manner. Through description and narration, the author gives the audience an idea of the disparity and differences between races. The purpose of this article is to signify discrimination and not only tell his side of the story, but as well as connecting with the audience in his experiences.
Jonathan Rauch’s essay “In Defense of Prejudice” essay immediately stood out to me for a few reasons. As a black Muslim woman living in America, I’ve dealt with my fair share of prejudice and for that I’ve always had a negative view towards it. Also, I found the title to be striking and unconventional which automatically drew me towards it. In “In Defense of Prejudice”, Rauch makes it clear that while he is not in favor of prejudice, he is in favor of allowing people to express their prejudice as openly and freely as they choose to. He takes a somewhat controversial stance with his belief that banning hate speech actually goes against freedom of speech and that eradicating prejudice should not be the goal of Americans, but to use prejudice
Discrimination is described as the unjust treatment of others, especially due to race, sex, or age. In the narratives “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston and “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, both writers use their works to shine a light on discrimination in the United States, though in different ways. Anzaldua’s focus relies mostly on the pride of her fellow Chicanos, whereas, Hurston has more of an individualistic, soulful message. Anzaldua grew up along the Mexican-American border where she struggled with her identity as she was torn between the standards of both Mexican and American societies. Hurston did not face significant racial differences until “the very day she become colored” (Hurston 1). Hurston’s
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.
Comparing the 1960’s to the world we live in today, people who are “different” in society are treated poorly. There are many ways over the years people who are divergent have been acted towards. From wide ranging of racial, religious, and sexual to minimizing as simply wearing the same clothes for 2 days. The book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button takes place in a summer of 1960 Baltimore. Roger Button and his wife were a very rich couple who owned a Hardware Company. Henceforth, having a 70-year old baby was not a word you wanted out. People who are wealthy and well-known always have a reputation to uphold. In this 1960’s scenario it would be “Whose son went to the best university” or “Whose son scored more points in the football game”.
...ites a short 33-line poem that simply shows the barriers between races in the time period when racism was still openly practiced through segregation and discrimination. The poem captures the African American tenant’s frustrations towards the landlord as well as the racism shown by the landlord. The poem is a great illustration of the time period, and it shows how relevant discrimination was in everyday life in the nineteen-forties. It is important for the author to use the selected literary devices to help better illustrate his point. Each literary device in the poem helps exemplify the author’s intent: to increase awareness of the racism in the society in the time period.
¬The human condition fundamentally embodies the experience of what is essentially considered vital to ‘being a person’, including not only the physique of a human, but more specially their behaviour and mentality. Due to the immense number of perspectives and variations of ideologies texts can demonstrate, a responder’s comprehension of the human condition can be substantially developed to create a broader understanding of society. These traits are particularly established in Samuel Wagan Watson’s poems itinerant blue (2002) and the finder’s fee (2002), as well as Fyodor’s Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment which delve most into mortality, insight and uncertainty respectively. Thus, these texts predominantly examine the psychological aspect of the human condition and mark it as the most significant.
The human attitudes have always been a curiosity that captivated most of the great social theorists like Karl Marx, Engels and Durkheim. One of the most unhumble attitude of the humanity was Racism and stereotyping.
Racism is based on the belief that one’s culture is superior to that of others, and this racial superiority provides justification for discrimination. Racism begins with categorising by race, and therefore stereotyping particular cultures. A simple definition of prejudice given by St Thomas Aquinas states prejudice as “thinking ill of others without sufficient cause” (1. pg 21). Racism is a major issue in today’s society, affecting a large number of the world’s population and causing political and social turmoil. To evaluate the true meaning, effects and views concerning racism in today’s world, a number of literature sources were researched including novel, films, short stories, poetry, song lyrics, textbooks and magazine articles.
Prejudice and discrimination have both been prevalent throughout human history. Prejudice deals with the inflexible and irrational attitudes and opinions that are held by others of one group against those of another. Discrimination on the other hand refers to the behaviors directed against another group. Prejudiced individuals have preconceived beliefs about groups of people or cultural practices. There are both positive and negative forms of prejudice, however, the negative form of prejudice leads to discrimination. Individuals that practice discrimination do so to protect opportunities for themselves, by denying access to those whom they believe do not deserve the same treatment as everyone else. An example of discrimination based on prejudice involves the Jews. “Biased sentiments and negative stereotypes of Jews have been a part of Western tradition for centuries and, in fact, have been stronger and more vicious in Europe than in the United States. For nearly two millennia, European Jews have been chastised and persecuted as the “killers of Christ” and stereotyped as materialistic moneylenders and crafty business owners (Healey, p.65). The prejudice against these groups led to the discrimination against them.