Prejudice - Essay 4

Prejudice - Essay 4

  • Submitted By: matt847847
  • Date Submitted: 03/13/2011 7:47 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1070
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 457

Being prejudice is in our nature as human beings. Everyone has their own thoughts and beliefs about other people and how they live their lives. It is the first thing that comes to our mind when we meet new people. You stop, take a moment and make a judgment of this new acquaintance. Most of the time it is just a quick review of the person but other times people can turn it into a hurtful and harassing statement. With prejudice comes mean words and usually violence.
In the essay, “Mommy, What Does 'Nigger' Mean?” Gloria Naylor writes, “the written word inferior to the spoken.” The written word is stronger and more powerful than words being said because they are everlasting. When something is written down it becomes embedded there for many others to read and learn from. It takes much more thinking to write down a bunch of words and have them make sense then to just blurt words out as your talking. Naylor gives us a great example of how hurtful discrimination can be and the psychological impact it has towards the people being discriminated against. She gives us real-life experiences that seem to bring us closer to her and feel like prejudice is worse than Rauch makes it out to be. She realizes that there are many people out there that feel like she does and has gone threw the same experiences she has. The word 'Nigger' and its meaning is and always be controversial. Now days people have become very comfortable with the word 'Nigger'. A group of black friends can say whats up to one of their friends by saying “whats up my nigga!” but if someone of another race says it, it can be very offensive. Words like this have several meanings and it depends on how you use it in a sentence and how you impose the word on someone else when your talking. This is a great example of what Rauch is trying to say when he talks about prejudice.
Garcia 2
Jonathan Rauch does a great job at giving us a reason to defend prejudice. His stance on the subject is unlike any others. He...

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