Two teenage girls from Gainesville, Florida posted a YouTube video including a racist rants directed at their black classmates, complaining about their diction and supposed lack of intelligence. The video is linked below, it’s definitely worth watching. In the video, the girls made points saying that black teenagers abuse the welfare system and that they get pregnant on purpose to keep getting a welfare check instead of getting an education. Also, one of the girls said “You can understand what we are saying, our accents, we use actual words. Black people do not.” They compared the black population between blacks and n*ggers. They stated that black people strive to achieve while n*ggers just get pregnant and don’t make a life for themselves. The principal of the high school, David Shelnutt, didn’t go into detail of their punishment, but he did say that their comments were no welcome and that there is “no place for that in society.” Once the video went viral, the two girls experienced heavy harassment and feared their safety. One of the girls even hid at a relative’s house while her mother was at work. The two girls publicly applied in a local newspaper and they stated that they weren’t “raised to hate people for their race, and [they] still don’t.” The high school wore orange, the color of race tolerance, for the week as a sigh of solidarity. Eventually, the girls were forced to leave Gainesville High School.
I related this event back to Kymberly Wimberly, who was the top of her graduating class with nearly straight As, honors and AP classes. She was originally valedictorian, but the principal decided to make her co-valedictorian along with a white male student with visible lower graders than she. It was not made clear if it was because she was black, but many believe it to be the case. Also, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was meant to end all types of discrimination and segregation against blacks. So, when these types of stories come up in the news, it just shows that people in our country are still discriminatory and that it is still a problem, even though it is a federal law.
Do you believe there is a possible way to completely abolish discrimination in our country? Explain why or why not.
No I do not think that there is a way to completely abolish discrimination is our country. Even though I know that we all wish that we should not have it and that this country has came such a long way, that this should not be an issue still talked about in 2012, but unfortunately it is. No matter how hard we as a country and citizens try to make this topic go away it still somehow finds a way to be a reoccurring issue. I believe this is so, because there are still some people in our country who believe that discriminating against a certain group of people is something that they feel strongly about because of some kind of hate towards that one group. And it is very hard to change the minds of people who for so long have been brought up and taught one way. So I think that this country as a whole has a long way to go still to improving our society.
ReplyDeleteDiscrimination has been happening in the country for decades and I don’t believe it will ever be completely abolished. Stereotypes have formed and been passed on to future generations, creating more tension and dividing everyone into categories. Citizens have already attempted to stop discrimination, but there has been little change on how people act towards others. While I believe discrimination will never be fully abolished, there are certain methods that could prevent the spread of stereotypes/discrimination. Companies could reach out to minority groups and encourage them to find jobs that they wouldn’t normally send in an application for. Taking small steps might be a bit risky for achieving a goal of less discrimination over a short period of time, but it’s better than not trying at all. However, I don’t believe discrimination will ever come to an end.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that there's a way to completely abolish discrimination in the United States of America. I think that no matter what certain people will still have hatred towards other races. As we witnessed in the movie Crash, there are still current day stereotypes that people continuously use. Even though discrimination may not be their intention, it still occurs. I agree with Rachel that taking small steps to end discrimination would be a great approach. I think that people need to become aware that "all men are created equal" and therefor we should treat everyone that way. No matter how wonderful it sounds to end discrimination all together, I think that's unreasonable considering how there has been racial tension in this country throughout history. I think that if the race categories were removed somehow, then people would be more willing to come together with those who may not look the way they do. Otherwise, I believe that there will always be people who discriminate against others.
ReplyDeleteLike my classmates have said, I also agree that there is no way to completely abolish discrimination in America. There will always be people who think of other races in a hatred filled way. I don't know the explanation of that is, but it is the truth. We still see many cases today, where discrimination has occurred. We saw in the movie Crash, that there is still deep-rooted race hate in America. No matter how many strides we make to end it, it can't go away for good. We have made many great strides since the Civil Rights Movement,but these strides don't completely rid America of this problem. I agree with Cassandra in her thought saying that everyone needs to be aware that "all men are created equal." Hopefully someday it is fully gone, but at this point we are not there. Rachel is right saying we should take small steps because that is a great approach to fix this problem. As much as we want to believe discrimination of other races is gone from America, we have to realize that it remains present and we must take steps to change that.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there is no way that discrimination is ever going to abolished and the issue of segregation as a hole will ever be upheld. People will always have their opinion on others and how they don't like them. Throughout our unit, we saw many examples of how racism still is still occurring today, many many years after slavery started. These two current events this week is another example of such. Our Constitution states that everyone should be treated fairly but our world does not follow that motto. The long civil rights act has made this country a better one in disallowing certain bad treatments to the black community and other races, however even with its progress it dint stop the issue as a whole. I do believe that its an issue that should be resolved as soon as possible and am in favor of hopefully one day stopping it. As much as we see progression and think that the issue has been fully resolved, we must look harder to see actually that it isn't so we can stop it.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that discrimination will be abolished anytime soon. The United States history with discrimination will always exist and will always be present in the United States, as will the rest of the world. Some people will always take it upon themselves to discriminate against people who are not the same race as they are. We have made achievements to end discrimination and to teach people that everyone is equal. These steps to end discrimination have made progress. However, to abolish discrimination in this country it will take much longer. This country's past, will always in this country, to make more progress in this country to end discrimination we, as a country, have to fix the flaws in our system and take small steps to end discrimination. It will take time, but it will be achieved.
ReplyDeleteI dont that racism and discrimination will ever be completely abolished in the Untied States. I think that we have already overcome many great things that are stepping stones to it, like electing our first African American president, but i think there is still a lot of work that is left to be done. People in this country will always think what they want and do what they want, and as long as people thing and act on their racist thoughts, then discrimination will always be a problem in this country. The world today is full of different people, and discrimination will most likely go on for a lot more time throughout the world, and not just int he United States.
ReplyDeleteI also don't believe that racism will be abolished in the U.S, at least not in my time. There are two sides like in most things and there are people who just won't be convinced to change. When one person does a racist act it can spark fights and riots which can only make the race issues worse than what they have been. President Obama becoming president was defiantly a step in the right direction for racism's ending but it doesn't turn everyone into thinking like others.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I do not think there is a way to completely abolish discrimination because everyone automatically forms opinions about people. It is pretty much a natural thing everyone does. Whether the opinion is good or bad, they are formed and later on repeated. There is no way someone can "walk in the others person's shoe" and therefore, the hatred towards some people aren't fair and turns into discrimination. Even though discriminating against someone is not fair at all, I feel as if there is no way as to completely preventing it. However, I do think there are ways to calm it down so there isn't as much discrimination and as people have said, electing an African American as president is definitely a step forward.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that there is a way to abolish discrimination in the United States of America like other classmates have stated. I believe that there will be certain people who stil have hatred towards other people. In class, we watched the movie Crash, where there is a lot of racial tensions between the different parties in the movie. No matter how hard we try, discrimination can never truely go away. Since the Civil Rights Movement, we have made many accomplishments since then, but they don't completely get rid of the problem in America. I also agree with Cassandra by saying "all men are created equal." I hope one day, discrimination is gone in the United States but for now, it doesn't look like it will happen for a while. But for the time being, I think there will always be people who discriminate against each other.
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ReplyDeleteRacism and discrimination will never be abolished in this country. People say that it will stop, but the truth is it won't. Sure, there are people who will not judge someone based on their and will not discriminate against them, but there will always be that one person who couldn't care less. You need to completely change a persons attitude towards races to end discrimination, but there are to many people in this world who just don't like other races. So i say that we can not completely abolish discrimination in this country.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe there is a possible way to completely abolish discrimination in our country. To me, discrimination comes from the people we are the ones that discriminate against each other. I think that once the mindset of the country changes and that Everyone realizes that discrimination is bad then it will continue. I think that even though most people know it’s not right to discriminate against each other, many people still will. The people that don’t adjust to the mindset that discrimination is bad, will keep the discrimination in this country, therefore, it won’t completely ever be abolished.
ReplyDeleteNo I do not think that racism and discrimination will never be abolished in our country. It really will never stop because so how people will always judge someone else on everything. To completely get ride of racism and discrimination you have to change everyone to care about everyone and make little things not matter like where they are fun and what there family is like but that is not going to happen, you cant change everyone. Everyone will always think what they want to think. Our country has been getting a lot better from our past with the slavery of African Americans we have came along way. But I still think as much as we try to end it, it will never end.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that there is a single way to abolish discrimination in the United States. No matter how many laws are created and enforced, they still may not change peoples opinion on races. They may obey the law but that doesn't meant things like this still stop because the laws may or may not be changing their mind-set. There has been a lot of success in minimizing the discrimination in the country but I do not believe that there is anything that could happen to make it disappear for good. Like Cassandra said, racism may not be intentional but it happens gradually and may turn out to be hurtful and disrespectful.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the question we have talked about in class over and over again, "what comes first- social change political or economic?" Even though social may be the most important, it isn't there because there cant be laws to force how people think and perceive individuals.
I don't think that there is anyway to completely stop discrimination. No matter what laws or actions are put into play, there are always going to be those people who think they are racially superior. The matter of race and discrimination is a choice for people to make, and whether we like it or not if people chose to be racist and really believe what they claim, then there is little we can do about it. It is a sad truth, the best thing we can do is to continue to educate people in the subject of race and race hate and hope that they won't continue to make false judgments about people of different color, race, or national origin. As we were informed in class on this current event it was clear that the girls who made this video were racist against blacks. And their way of thinking was expressed through the means of the video. All in all there really is no way we can stop discrimination entirely, but we can do our best to inform the people about the truths behind race in this world.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that there is a way to completely prevent discrimination in our country. There are too many different cultures, religions and different societies that will never come to any type of agreement. Laws or political agreements may be created to prevent things such as blacks being segregated from whites but this cannot even prevent something as silly as that. People do things to each other that creates the hatred in our country. The blame always seems to go towards someone else though. There will never be complete peace anywhere because of things such as social networking or guns that create violence. As we saw in the Crips vs. Bloods video in class, these two gangs are from the same race but they will always fight each other because of the ever lasting generations of family that expect them to act this way. However, this applies to all races, not just the blacks. The standards that each race sets for each other is what causes the hatred in our country that is never going to go away.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone else has been saying, I also agree that there is no possible way to completely abolish discrimination in our country. Although we have made significant forward progress to abolish it over the years, it still remains an issue that will maintain for what I believe to be at least the rest of my life time, like Troy said. No matter any laws made, or movements that occur there will always be disagreement and hatred across our country, that's how it has been and that's how I believe it will stay for many many years. Racism is a big factor in the discrimination in our country. I believe that if racism never had existed the country would not be discriminated what so ever. Gangs like in the film we watched in class about the Bloods vs. Crips are also a huge reason discrimination exists. I believe that as of right now we are on the right track of abolishing discrimination, but we are not entirely there yet. In order to completely end discrimination in the United States of America, it will take everyone's cooperation and good attitude to do so, along with acceptance towards everyone.
ReplyDeleteThere really isn’t a set way or any way to successfully and fully abolish discrimination. Because discrimination is so strung out amongst the globe and is everywhere both by physical means and cyber. It has been written about in articles and talked about in official speeches by government officials and news anchors and bloggers, and they all talk about its effects and what has been happening. There really hasn’t been any set way to accomplish demolishing discrimination completely. Since the early 1900s and before that in some means, discrimination has been touched upon politically and socially, and has been getting better. The development of ways to crack down on discrimination has gotten better over the years, yet is still a problem to this day. Listening and reading the current event got me thinking that, the government has to come up with come organization that communicates with schools to have them organize a presentation or a student-ran club that helps crack down on discrimination, and include a petition that every student would sign, pledging to never discriminate against anyone ever. In doing this, it [discrimination] would be getting fought from the inside out until it is no more. This may or may not work, but a social effort is, I think, the best way to have a break though in this topic. So, it might be possible, if my idea could be followed-through.
ReplyDeleteI am not completely sure, but I also think that their isn't a way to completely abolish discrimination. The ideas will always be out there and there will always be someone that will be racist. But also, I do not think we have control on abolishing discrimination. As we have seen multiple times throughout our history, political change in no way garuntess social change. I think that discrimination is an idea that will be faded over time. The mind set of the country always changes and it takes a long time to achieve social change. I still think that punishments should be put in place, but social change is something we have to wait for.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that there is a way to completely destroy discrimination in our country. People will always be fearful of each other and anyone who is different. The government can create laws and set up and attempt to abolish discrimination, they are only bandages that cover the real problem. Laws cannot change someones mindset, though it may keep them from voicing their opinion or acting on it. It is human nature, and though we are slowly moving toward generations who do not understand race hate it is going to take a long time for us to get over our sordid past. In this case our country is going to have to look for social change above political to end discrimination and racism.
ReplyDeleteI do not think there is a way to completely abolish discrimination. People believe in it because it is in their own heads and if they do not want to change their minds they are not going to. It would be amazing if not one person in the United States believed in discrimination. No matter how many attempts to change people they will not do it especially if they feel like they are being forced to change their minds. They will only believe in it more. If there is too many laws made fighting against it the people who believe in it might feel the need to make more of a scene so they are also getting their reasons out about why they believe in it.
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