Saturday, February 11, 2012

Prejudice without Prior Knowledge

The following video is a little over nine minutes long.  In those nine minutes my emotions went from anger to tears.  I was horrified by racial behavior targeted at a beautiful young lady because she is wearing a Hijaab, a traditional head scarf worn by Muslim women, trying to order an apple turnover in a bakery.  The clerk is refusing to sell the young lady an apple turnover and the surrounding customers are either pretending not to witness the brutal and demoralizing racism or they are supporting the behavior by agreeing with the clerk or giving him thumbs up.  The scene is staged with the clerk and the young lady being actors but the customers have no clue that they are acting while the young lady is the victim of extreme racism.  I am surprised she had the energy to continue with the staging as long as she did.  The demeaning behavior towards her had to of been emotionally draining.  It is during the last few minutes of the video that my anger subsides and I am reduced to tears because, finally, some customers did not hold back on supporting the young lady by walking out of the bakery or demanding the clerk to serve the young lady.

I do not feel there is an opportunity for greater equity in this video unless the customers who are so filled with racism were to change.  Their behavior is evidence that we still have a lot of work to do in supporting social justice and equity for all.

4 comments:

  1. What a great program, Patty. Do they do this regularly? how quickly we forget just a few generations ago our ancestors came to North America for political and religious freedoms and here we are denying it. Don't you think the more the media brooaches these subjects, the more public discussions will be sparked and change may happen? Thanks for sharing this.

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  2. Bobbie,
    I enjoyed watching the video until it started to get a bit sad. It is a shame how people are still acting toward each others race. I agree Bobbie, there's so much work left to do with supporting social justice.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Tracey

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  3. Wow! I cannot even imagine being in that bakery and not speaking up!
    Even with the knowledge that both the woman in the hijab and the man behind the counter were both actors, the scene si stressful and sad to witness.

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  4. I agree Careyann! What an amazing video for people to realize how much this actually does happen. I think this is a great realization of how hard it is for some people to function in day to day life. So much harder for certain people to do anything in public when they are outwardly showing their religion. People are so closed minded and obnoxious!!

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