Tuesday’s lecture opened my eyes to the build up to fight for equal rights. I would have thought that now, racism was not a big issue, however it is something which is still happening and causing problems in 2017.
The workshop on resource allocation was another eye opener, being part of the group with the least resources opened our minds to what the world would be like if this was the case every day of your life.
Living in a smaller town with no real problems with poverty I grew up not seeing first hand how hard it is for people to be born and not given the same start in life as others have. The feeling of not having the same resources as another group but expected to make the same outcome was not a pleasant one, we felt there was no point as we were never going to accomplish what they will make. This is how some people feel every day of their life throughout school and work.
The power point on Tuesday showed many different events which lead to the civil rights movements, some I had no previous knowledge of, even the event which happened locally in Dundee. The murder of Emmet Till was another eye opener, the thought of someone being killed because they may have touched a white person is hard to imagine now, and hard to understand how it was ever justified. This was sadly a reoccurring circumstance, white people being able to get out of murders and crimes because the jury was always white males. This not only suppressed black people, but women too. The rights of women have also come a long way, to an extent. Still in society men are seen as more superior, and I had not noticed certain articles headlines which showed this in the media, as if we are just used to it and do not even notice that is suppressing women in any way.
The power point made me rethink how far we have come with equal rights, and if we really are moving on as a society from these views that white males are superior.