Prejudice in Telephone Conversation and Dinner Guest-Me Essay

Not only do these poems share differences through the speakers childhood, but also through the tones of the works.

Across the nation, millions of Americans of all races turn on the television or open a newspaper and are bombarded with images of well dressed, articulate, attractive black people advertising different products and representing respected companies. The population of black professionals in all arenas of work has risen to the point where seeing a black physician, attorney, or a college professor are becoming more a common sight. More and more black people are holding positions of respect and authority throughout America today, such as Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice and many other prominent black executives. As a result of their apparent success, these black people are seen as role models for many Americans, despite their race.

The first poem I analyzed was The Lanyard. The speaker of The lanyard is a boy who tries to offer his lanyard that he made at camp to make up for all the loving care that his mother has gave him in his life. The boy addresses his mother as a very loving mother that has always taken care of him and done what is best for him. He talks up all the great things that his mother has given him and all he can give her is a lanyard. “She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard.” “Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes to see the world to read the world with, she whispered, and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.” These lines from the poem are metaphors of not being able to give your mother what she deserves at a young age for all that she has done for you. No matter what you get her it will never scale to the amount to what she has done for you. The humour in this poem is sarcastic in a way because the speaker always

“The unemployment rate among blacks is about double among whites, as it has been for more than six decades” (Desilver). Some say that prejudice can still be seen in the modern world today. Prejudice is when a negative assumption is made about a person because they have a different opinion, race, or religion than others. In the modern world many people still have negative viewpoints towards people with no reasoning. Prejudice are not only seen today but also seen in 1933 in Maycomb, Alabama.

I was born and raised in Europe. I have learned from my history books that there were freedom and equality in the United States. I learned that, among many other rights, people enjoy freedom of religion and freedom of speech - the rights that were envied by millions of people of the Eastern Block countries.

In this modern world, prejudice is still a universal problem we still have yet to overcome. Although it is true that our society is much less prejudiced than it was 40-50 years ago, we are still struggling to create racial harmony in a world that is so diverse in terms of racial group, sexual orientations, ethnicity, nationality, religions, and so on. I think the core of prejudice comes from stereotyping, which is the generalization of motives, characteristics, or behavior to an entire group of people. In the world where media propaganda is ubiquitous, often times most stereotypes are not formed on valid experiences, instead they are based on images publicized by the mass media, or even created within our heads after seeing and hearing examples from many different sources, like movies, or even hearsay. Stereotyping is more powerful than we think, because it allows those false pictures to control our thinking that leads us to assign uniform characteristics to any person in a group, without consideration of the actual difference between members of that particular group.

Prejudice was everywhere in the 1960s, and it’s still lurking in the shadows now. Although racism and sexism are less pronounced than they were before, they still exist today. People in the United States are not as far against prejudice as they like to think. Humanity has come far from openly discriminating against others and not being reprimanded, but there are still issues with racism, sexism, and other prejudices that make them sensitive topics.

Prejudice influences the historical record because those opinions and beliefs are handed down through the generations and believed by others due to the influence those that express those views have on others. In the context of the Understanding Prejudice quiz about slaves and their treatment, the textbook states that “contemporary institutional and individual racism, which is central to today’s conflicts, has its origins in the institution of slavery” (Schaefer, 2015, p 168) which was embraced by many of our past presidents and which allowed long-standing prejudice and discrimination to occur against black people. The prejudicial theories of authoritarian personality, exploitation, and normative come into play as well as the theoretical perspectives of functionalist and labeling.

Fat people are funny. If you wear Crocs means that you are a complete dork. If you are pretty, you are smart, and if you are ugly you are stupid. Little old ladies that have a lot of cats are nice. These are examples of prejudice. It is in schools, on the radio, and on TV. Prejudice is what we think of people or things just because other people look like or act like that. Prejudice is a preconceived idea that is in no way based on a reason or actual experience or evidence. Prejudice is a major problem for many people in the United States and many other places in the world, but the more you know about prejudice, the easier it is to identify and stop it.

The world has operated on a mixture of hate and envy. The United States alone has continuously had issues of prejudice – which contradicts what the nation stands for. America symbolizes the freedom, equality, and peace that people worked so hard to attain. With racial hatred and discrimination lingering in our communities, love and the principles that were fought for have not seen the light of day. It goes unnoticed by an overwhelming majority, yet there are groups of people that see this phenomenon daily and try to spread awareness. Love has the ability to fix long-lasting problems, but society’s ignorance and greediness gets in the way and clouds our understanding of how to deal with situations. A universal flaw in the human condition is

For century’s man’s thoughts, ideals, perceptions, and actions have caused tumultuous inquiraries. We as a society have learned to accept discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping. These malefactors have caused great malice. Consequently, these dehumanizing practices are not only present in America which is considered to be the “melting pot”, but globally. Everyone is eccentric in their own way. We all have the God given right, and the natural right to habitat, in peace and harmony, and to be free of afflictions from others. Our Forefathers did not have discrimination, prejudice, or even stereotyping in mind when it came to building up America. In fact these cancerous inklings imbrue the very fabric that America was made of. Discrimination,

Stereotypes are something that we are all affected by in our everyday lives in one way or another. You may have made a stereotype about someone, and not even realize that you are stereotyping them. For that reason I believe that there are many different stereotypes embedded into our minds. Everyone has made a stereotype about someone, and may have been wrong or right about that stereotype. Either way if you were wrong or right about what you thought about, or labeled on a person, it is still a stereotype. I have noticed that people do not take the time to get to know someone, but rather stereotype them off appearances or gender, or religion, and many other different categories of people.

When I think of American culture, one thing comes to mind, sports. Us Americans sit gazing at our televisions for countless hours watching anything from football to hockey to basketball. And even if you’re not a sports fan, we all know that when the Super Bowl comes around, we are all watching. Sports have always been a way to bring people from all backgrounds together. It is what brought a divided racial America together in the 50’s with Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, it brought nations from around the world together in an event we now call the Olympics and everyday it brings thousands of people from around the nation in light hearted and fun competition.

In today’s world, there are many social issues, like poverty, vandalism and unemployment. However, prejudice has become the most dramatic one. Prejudging people for their appearance is a common practice that humans perform. People are not only ridiculed for their color, but also by their religion, sex or age. Therefore, I consider that racism, ageism and sexism are the three major problems in our society and we need to cease them immediately. Much of our world’s history were based upon racism. In the 1600’s, white men used Africans as slaves and treated them as they were not human. "Colored" people were not even allowed to use the same drinking fountains as white people. Fortunately, in the last three decades, race

In any society, how we see ourselves and how others treat us depends on many factors. Race, ethnicity, and cultural background are identifiers of individuals. Most people have confronted prejudice based on these identifiers, either personally experiencing discrimination or knowing someone who has. Beyond ensuring organizational compliance with a country’s anti-discrimination laws, it is incumbent upon managers to support diversity in the workplace and to be culturally competent.