Sunday, April 10, 2011

I know that this show has been brought up many times in class, but I've never watched any part of it until now.  What I found was completely shocking and made me want to see more.  In this instance there was an African American woman shopping in a store in upscale SoHo.  This experiment was set up so the actress was discriminated against solely because of the color of her skin and the manager of the store who was doing the discriminating was white.  The manager used "the facts" in order to make her case more legitimate and even apologized to the other customers for the woman's very presence.  This case was one that could be very real at any point in a person's life and it honestly outraged me.  I've never witnessed a situation like this and I couldn't imagine the fact that what I was seeing could really happen to people.  Out of the over 100 people that witnessed this situation, only 20 people (many of these people were of color) decided to intervene in some way.  That means that 80% of people in this situation, mainly white people, remain silent.  This shows "white privilege" because we are the silent ones who don't stick up for others that are in need of help.  After seeing this I know for a fact that if I ever came across a situation like this that I would stand up for the person being discriminated against and say something.  It might take a little courage, but it's better than allowing anything like that to happen to someone just because of their skin color.  

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