Jonathan Rauch's In Defense Of Prejudice

Hate speech—words or symbols targeted at a particular group or person that attack or intimidate them based upon sex, race, religion, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, or gender—has recently become extremely controversial, especially in regards to college campuses. Although merely visual or verbal behaviors, hate speech can indirectly and directly cause physical and psychological harms. Philosophers Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic delve into the negative impact of hate speech in their essay “Words That Wound”, detailing exactly how supposed expressions of freedom of speech can detrimentally impact its victims. Such dire consequences thus call for targeted and threating speech to be banned in certain spaces in order to sustain a safe environment for the majority of people.

While hate speech should be better understood, bigoted acts should not be included in hate speech or harmful subjective phrases. hate speech has become a spotlight topic and there is a discussion if free speech should protect it. The main opposition against free speech being an

In the New York Times article “The Harm in Free Speech”, Stanley Fish argues that it would make no difference if Jeremy Waldron’s book, “The Harm in Hate Speech,” was titled “The Harm in Free Speech”. While providing an insightful review of the novel, Fish promotes the ideas depicted in the novel. Fish argues that American society is obsessed with using the First Amendment to say outwardly offensive statements. Fish asserts that “hate speech” is not simply expressing an opinion, but rather a way to belittle members of society a person deems unworthy. Americans hide behind the First Amendment and use it as a justification to spew hate speech.

Mark Twain once said, “The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” Even as we as a globalized society have improved greatly, prejudice appears far too often and is expressed everywhere even in today’s world. During World War 2, prejudice was peaking in society. In Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatuski Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that silent prejudice hurts the most.

Derek Bok and Charles Lawrence both write about free speech and its effect on the community. In “Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus”, Derek Bok poses a discussion for the changing rules on a school campus in an effort to combat racist speech. Charles Lawrence’s article, “On Racist Speech” presents a detailed view on the history, effect and how to fix racist speech rather than give away control. In comparison, both articles broach the subject of racist speech, but Bok’s uses weak reasoning and analysis, whereas Lawrence's use of inductive and deductive reasoning, rhetorical appeals and fallacies make his the stronger article. David Bok’s reasoning for how racist speech can be solved is flawed.

The ability to speak freely is written in the bill of rights and has been preserved for decades, but when free speech turns into hate speech it brings up the widely deliberated issue about banning hate speech. There are many different perspectives on the issue of hate speech. Author of Hate Speech is Free Speech, Gov. Dean and Law professor, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, applies a strong historical perspective on the situation arguing that people are “constitutionally illiter[ate]” when they make the claim that hate speech is not part of the First Amendment. Believing that it is impossible to ban hate speech because everyone will always disagree with any idea, Reynolds focuses on the problems with banning hate speech and what might happen if hate

looks at how it ultimately affects society and targeted groups. There are a myriad of arguments for and against the allowance of hate speech. Some citing Democracy and the first amendment others stem from the fear of eroded freedoms of expression and have valid points, but ultimately, it corrodes society’s human rights and freedoms. The two fold issue being intolerance of the freedom of self-determination and the fact that some are born a color or culture and have no choice. Therefore, hate speech is anti-social and damaging to society as a whole.

Bigotry may run through the American grain, but so too does resistance. We know the world we are fighting for” (277). Ahmed introduces the importance of peace in a crowd filled with hatred. People have the power to destroy hate before it transforms them into ugly and regretful individuals. In the end, it comes down to whether individuals are willing to help themselves and others control themselves under the influence of

One would think prejudice is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that is not the case, prejudice is still a common factor in todays society. Vincent N. Parrillo’s essay “Causes of Prejudice,” helped me to understand how we are affected not just psychologically but in a sociological way as well, as John A. Camacho explains in his A Few Bad Apples opinion piece published in the Pacific Daily News. Both forms of prejudice are continued to be explained through Stud Turkel’s “C.P Ellis,” he gives us an understanding of psychological and sociological prejudice through C.P Ellis’own experiences. This furthers our understanding on how we can be affected by both psychological and sociological prejudices. The Primary causes of prejudice are psychological as shown by emotional prejudice and demonstrated through an authoritarian personality, that may result in displaced aggression. Where Sociological prejudice can be shown by social norms.

Our life experiences make our present, our values, our way of behaving and thinking. Although no one is perfect, we are prone to develop prejudice against those who are totally different from us. For most of the time, prejudice only affects us personally. But if an individual is given a power to be responsible for another person’s live or death, prejudice can turn into a deadly weapon.

“We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced,” said Herbert Spencer, a famous philosopher. Prejudice is frequent everywhere and difficult to stop. It is very difficult to destroy something in someone’s mind, and it will inevitably be expressed through various methods with different degrees of subtlety. Any expression of this can hurt. Subsequently, in Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that prejudice is everywhere, and can be of varying degrees.

The article by Dorothy Roberts focuses around how race was invented. She talks about how and why people of different cultures were treated differently. It reflected on the different laws that “assigned” people to certain races and how it was different from state to state. In the second chapter Roberts talks about how people aren’t that different from each other genetically but we still focus on that 0.1%.

As a young country, the United States was a land of prejudice and discrimination. Wanting to grow their country, white Americans did what they had to in order to make sure that they were always on top, and that they were always the superior race. It did not matter who got hurt along the way because everything that they did was eventually justified by their thinking that all other races were inferior to them. A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki describes the prejudice and discrimination against African Americans and Native Americans in the early history of the United States. We see how the leaders of this country, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, had prejudice thoughts about these two different ethnic groups, how prejudice was built into society and the

Thesis: Both authors in the essay “In Defense of Prejudice” and “Mommy What does ‘Nigger’ Mean?” address controversial topics in the world. While Rauch

Mahatama Gandhi once said, “Anger and Intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.” Intolerance is treating anybody unfairly because of their beliefs, they are different, or their identity. Currently, our society is filled with intolerance everywhere you turn; this could be on televisions or movies, in a novel, or even in a school. In general, intolerance can mean almost everything to different people. You’re probably wondering how this could be happening in the 21th century where technology, intelligence, quality of living are supposed to be stronger and safer than ever before.