Prejudice Makes a Fool out of us

What kind of world do we live in when we go around stereotyping those who are different from us, when we make them lesser to us, and when we discriminate them and cast unhappiness upon them and their folks while we call ourselves civilized people? How come it depends on what you look like to determine who you are to other people’s eyes? How is it possible that humanity can be ruled by such fools? Fools that have been blinded and forced to look only at your appearance rather than your soul? How is it that we let the wrong things happen just because we don’t want to get our hands dirty if the fight for right gets a little offhand? The answer is tragically true; we let prejudice blind us with the darkness of unfairness. Just because someone is Muslim doesn’t mean he’s a terrorist; just because someone is Latino doesn’t mean he has something to do with drugs; just because someone is German doesn’t mean he is a Nazi. Humanity has degraded itself once again when a white man called George Zimmerman shot dead a 17-year-old black boy, Martin Treyvon, based on the fact that he looked “suspicious” just because he was black and was walking in the street at night with a hoodie on.

                “A black person in a hoodie isn’t automatically ‘suspicious’”. Occupy Wall Street posted this on its website in regard to Treyvon’s death and many people marched in his name because of the unfairness of this case. Zimmerman’s prejudice led him to believe Treyvon was some kind of thug or anything of that nature, and followed him. A while later, a commotion was heard and then a shot was fired. There were no other people watching the scene, no witnesses there to verify what truly happened; therefore, Zimmerman’s claim that he had shot the boy in self-defense is saving him from going to jail. A life has been lost and there’s no way to take it back, all because of a man’s prejudice. One can see that humanity in fact is very dependent on how it sees people, and how we act with and around them is affected by this.

                “The incident has sparked a heated debate about racism and law enforcement, as well as discussions about a Florida law that eliminates the need for individuals to retreat when attacked”. As individuals—especially in this case—we stand in a very complicated spot in which we have various options. We can be the witness, the one who watches over the commotion; the anti-hero, someone who helps the aggressor; or the hero, one who decides to do something good and help the innocent. Our responsibility as individuals would be to protect the innocent, it doesn’t matter if it’s a close friend or a stranger the one who is being beaten up, we should always do the right thing. Even now after Treyvon is dead, we still hold the responsibility to fight for him, to make justice and protect him from being unfairly judged, yet not just only him. We—the civilized people, those conscious of what’s wrong and right—have the duty to save both, the judged and the ones who judge, from the darkness of discrimination.

                The problem of course is not just Zimmerman, but the whole world. Many people find themselves afraid of what they don’t understand; consequently, leading them to act the way Zimmerman did. He didn’t understand that there was more to Treyvon than just black skin and a hoodie; he was a son, a brother, a boyfriend, someone with a future, a normal human being. Ignorance can be very tricky, for Zimmerman it was a factor of fear; his ignorance was stained with prejudice and he acted blindly out of it. What if he had followed what he was instructed to do? What if he hadn’t judged Treyvon with such fake eyes?

                Unfortunately for the world, humanity’s eyes are blurred with ignorance and its mind is clouded by discrimination. A simple factor, such as a person’s gender, can change the way we see a person to a completely different level. The probabilities of Treyvon’s survival if he had been a girl might’ve been higher. It’s unbelievable that a black man fulfills the category of being suspicious while a black woman might just be another person to the world; it influences the way we behave, the way we think, the way we even see  other people.

Prejudice makes a fool out of us and a fool out of the whole world because it makes us all hypocrites. Zimmerman made a fool of himself for staying ignorant under the shadow of unfair judgment calls, but he has united people to fight against it too. Yet, it makes us wonder why such people are allowed to have a second chance while the innocent pay for the consequences meant for the guilty. Believe it or not, humanity tends to be ignorant, but we can’t let that control our minds because then we’ll turn out to be those blind fools who can’t see beyond the barrier of ignorance and prejudice.