Patricia Williams Discrimination Essay

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

not alone, I commend her on what she did, she has my support one hundred percent.
While reading about Williams experience I was caught off guard. It’s very ironic how she was denied access because of the color of her skin, yet the company is known for supporting all races. I can see where her rage is coming from, I was enraged while reading. A company claims to supports all races but then hires employees who discriminate against others, that makes the company look terrible. The company put a target not only on themselves but the employee that denied her access, opening up the door to bad business. Williams had every right to publish the paper with Benetton’s name in it.
Williams experience is one of many, I have known multiple people who have been discriminated against because of the color of their skin, how they look, or what they wear. Throughout this reading a few things caught my attention, one of the main things was the disrespect. “After about five seconds, he mouthed “We’re closed” and blew pink rubber at me.” (Williams, 1991) Disrespect isn’t right at all; by popping his gum in her face it shows that he has no respect for her. Many times have I been disrespected and had to act on it. Once while working at an old job, I had an older gentleman wanting to use a gift card, our system had been down at the time and gift card weren’t working. This gentleman got so upset her started to curse at me. I tried calming him down telling him “There are other stores that can use the gift cards, I’m sorry our system is not working.” He got so upset he started yelling “I came all the way out here just to be told my gift cards don’t work, you guys are bullshit.” As my manager and I escorted him out of the store he tried to spit on both of us. Spiting at me is like fighting words, you spit on me and its game time.
Disrespect can come in many ways, words and actions are main ways to disrespect someone.

Spiting or popping gum in ones face can send them over the edge, so I can understand Williams angry towards the teen along with the rage towards her discrimination. I’ve been discriminated against and disrespected, my boyfriend is Haitian, and me being white we get looks all the time. The color of our difference skin color is why people get upset, people give looks because were an interracial couple. Some people don’t respect interracial relationships; they think were wrong because we fell in love with what is on the inside. Family members don’t respect it, they think it’s wrong. We also have to look at it that some were raised that white is right and black is wrong, if they don’t agree with us then what can we do? It’s disrespectful to tell someone who they should or shouldn’t be with based on their skin color.

Racism has always been an issue, it always will be. I stand by Williams side and agree with everything she did. She had a problem and made others aware of the situation. Her rage drove her to let other know about being turned away and how her writing was changed. Nothing stopped her from telling the true story. She exercised her first amendment and no one can be mad at her for

that.
What would you do in Williams’s shoes? Would you have let it rolled off your shoulders or make it public? As the world has changed we’ve become more accepting of other races, we still have discrimination, stereotypes, and history. Racism will always be an issue, there will always be people who don’t accept others. Hopefully as the world grows in diversity so will our love for others.