'Anyone is guilty who watches this and does nothing'.

'Anyone is guilty who watches this and does nothing'. Have you ever reflected on this phrase before? What have you done when you have seen people being discriminated against? What more can you do the next time you witness discrimination taking place? I certainly hope you would reflect on this phrase, because anyone, including you, could face discrimination yourself, in your lives, somewhere, somehow. Perhaps you haven't faced such issues before yet, but you will certainly face situations whereby there is discrimination soon.

I have personally witnessed a sad event before, and it was happened rather recently. It just happened last year. If you had read my previous blog posts, you would know that I have had a classmate that was discriminated again last year, and you would come to realise that I have been learning about about prejudication and discrimination in my Language Arts lessons this year. Yes, I am mainly learning about racial discrimination now, but I certainly feel that such a form of discrimination would hardly occur now, for theres no longer any racial segregations, and theres hardly any racism going on right now.

I wouldn't emphasise on my past experiences now, but my point is that, watching discrimination and doing nothing is wrong. Perhaps you are indifferent to discrimination, perhaps you are afraid of not being with the crowd, or perhaps you support the discrimination of certain people; but it all lies down to one thing. Those being discriminated against are suffering, and you are merely watching. Have you ever though about how it feels like to be discriminated against? Have you ever been discriminated before? Think about it. Of course, my answer for both these questions are yes.

Well, if you are really indifferent to discrimination, or if you support it, I am pretty sure what I say here wouldn't affect you. If you are afraid of not being with the crowd, I don't know what to say. Personally, I feel that you shouldn't be afraid of that! I mean, this is kind of laughable. If say, there was a certain question in a certain test whereby everyone has gotten it wrong except for you, would you be afraid of that? No! Yes. This is how I feel now. Even so, I had previously attempted to help others when they are being discriminated against, but I stopped helping them soon later. I always backed out in the end thinking that I would be on the losing end later on, whereby I wouldn''t salvage the situation and I would have wasted my effort.

But, now, I am pretty sure that I would help others when they are being discriminated against throughout. I wouldn't want to make the same mistake as I had previously. I had forgotten all about my classmate last year soon later. I am sure I could have helped him in his studies and everything, but I didn't. All I did was to tell him not to feel sad and to revise for his next tests when he scored badly for his tests. Of course, doing this was enough, because this was better than discriminating him. I certainly hope YOU would kindly stop discriminating against others if you are doing so currently, and also that you would feel free to help those being discrimated against a little, even if it seems like it wouldn't make a difference.

Mississippi Burning: Prejudice and Tolerance

I had viewed the movie Mississippi Burning (1988) quite recently, and I pretty much liked the movie. I feel that the movie's main emphasis is on prejudice and tolerance, and this is because the Whites had prejudice against the Blacks, and because the Blacks had tolerated all the Whites had done to them without responding in any way. Let me explain further by giving an overview of the story.

The movie is basically about two FBI agents investigating the murder of three civil rights activists, and this leads them to Mississippi, a place whereby racial segregation takes place, and they face many difficulties in their investigation as there was a conspiracy of silence among Mississippi's state and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). KKK is basically an organisation that has prejudice against the Blacks and feels that their lands belongs to only the Whites themselves, but not to the Blacks, and they had been intimidating and lynching the Blacks in Mississippi. The racial segregation in Mississippi was depicted rather obviously as seen by the difference in the water fountains the Whites and the Blacks drink from, and the seperation of the Blacks from the Whites in restaurants.

The Blacks have suffered alot due to the prejudice, and had developed tolerance towards the Whites' behaviour, especially the KKK's actions, and they do not respond or react to their actions, for fear of being tortured even more. This was the sole reason why the FBI agents had difficulties investigating the murder case, as neither the Blacks nor the Whites were willing to talk to them about what had happened to the three civil rights activists.

I like this movie because of its plot which flows nicely, from the depiction of the prejudication through racial segregation and the demonstrations of what KKK does to Blacks who talk to the FBI agents (Beating them up), to the gathering of evidence by the FBI agents by applying violence back to the KKK members, then eventually get to the truth of the murder case, and finally jailing many of the KKK members. I like this movie also because there was a contrast in the two FBI agents' style of gathering evidence, and the movie shown that going by the books wasn't a way to solve cases involving racism, and unorthodox methods like applying violence had to be used to gather evidence.