"Prejudice is a diesease we can never get rid of." Discuss.
Let me first define the meaning of the words in the question. Prejudice is an unreasonable feeling, opinion or attitude which is of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group. The meaning of never get rid of is that it cannot be eradicated, it will always present. In my opinion, prejudice is everywhere, without a real form and it will accumulate and grow into something big and dangerous where lives will be lost, nations will be destroyed.
I agree to a large extend that prejudice is a disease that we can never get rid of. This is because people are constantly placing judgement on people who are different from them, calling other names to make fun of them. Prejudice is often an ideology passed down from generations to generations, making it much more difficult for people to remove it. Just taking a small country like Singapore as an example. The nation has a mixture of different races and religion as people here originates from different background, Chinese from China, Indians from India and etc. As we all know, racial riots in the early years of Independence caused the deaths and injuries of many, economy were badly affect back then. Singapore is able to bounce back and become of the leading nations in the world in some areas. Does that mean that we are a racist-free nation? i beg to differ. Not too long ago, several young citizens of the republic were caught saying racist comments against another race saying things that they are stupid and things like this.Isn't this a form of discrimination? Also, "ang moh" a term used to refer to caucasians originates from the older generation calling people of the western countries as "red haired" are still commonly used. Are the caucasians now all "red haired"? The reason that all these terminology and ideas are still suspended among the young these days is because of the passing down of such knowledge through the generations.Think about the amount of evolution those comment had underwent, will it be so easily being eradicated?
At most times, we do not realise ourselves as being prejudice as we thought that the world today is open enough to accept those thoughts. Is that really true?The recent virginia massacre is the model answer to the question. The korean guy had been a victim of discrimination that had pushed him of the edge of the cliff that caused him to kill a total of 32 people after which he commited suicide. He had been so disturbed by prejudice that he went on a killing spree, can we still accept and just sit back to see further evolution of prejudice? No. I feel that if everyone still see each other through the colour of their skin, the God that they pray to, and their beliefs, discrimination will perceived on and we should not expect a change to that.
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Sunday, April 22, 2007
“YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” Do you agree?
I agree only to a certain extend that YouTube was created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. Any corporations, business, etc, worked on the basis of collecting revenues, earning profits so that their business keeps going and expand. Why should it be of any difference for YouTube? There is no free lunch in the world. Hence, YouTube has all the rights to demand monetary exchange for the clips and videos that was put up by them for entertainment sake.
However, I do not agree totally that YouTube has no ethnics. Yes, YouTube puts up all types of videos and clips. Racist clips, scandals of politicians, movie trailers and shows that children will otherwise, not be able to watch and sometimes these sparked dispute or violence when people immitate those videos. Recently, a clip was put up by a handful of Chinese men, which shows (or rather let us hear,because its a sound clip) how they teased an Indian Muslim selling food at the Arcade (a muslim stall). They pestered him for pork in his halal stall. Although the clip that last for about 5 mins was hilarious, the lack of respect they showed to the other racial group may have a snowballing and catastrophic effect on the multi-racial society like Singapore.
Yet, YouTube may serve as a ringing alarm for us in certain areas. The videos like the one mentioned above, may be touching on touchy issue of racism, it serves as a warning bell to people that some of us are really overboard. The reason people said that it has no ethnics because it presents truths of what people outside are thinking and doing. Unlike the mass media which are intensely censored and the "bad'' side are sieved out, YouTube provides a comprehensive idea of the outside world. Mr Brown show for example, targets advertisments, policies by relating it in a way that some people may actually think. It showed the flip side of an issue, the side that may have been hidden for motives.
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