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Camilo Marulanda
Professor Ethridge
ENC1101
02 October 2015
Discrimination in Our Society
The issue of discrimination is perhaps one of the most lasting and impactful issues that
people around the world deal with today. It is an issue that is psychological in nature and is
deeply rooted in the concept of prejudice as is declared by Hank Green in his video on
discrimination, Prejudice & Discrimination: Crash Course Psychology #39. Whether we are
talking about discrimination based on gender, races, or sexual orientation, it is unquestionably a
major issue that has continued to draw more and more attention over the last few years. Sirena
Van Schaik, in her online article, Discrimination: Then and Now, Our Image in Todays
Society, talks in depth about the discrimination she has experienced in her life. Compared to
Hank Greens discrimination video, which takes a more psychological approach to the topic,
Schaik talks very personally about her experience. These different views surrounding the
exigence of discrimination in our society are important for understanding audience, discourse,
and constraints as they relate to the topic.
In Schaiks text she highlights the exigence she has faced throughout her life by giving
personal experiences and examples such as her family and encounters with strangers. She
communicates to her audience that she has witnessed and firsthand lived through discrimination
and continues to experience it. She begins by telling her audience that in todays society,
promoting equality and anti-discrimination has become the norm but it is only followed to a
certain extent and when its convenient. She is perhaps inferring that many people hold prejudice
even when they may say they do not and aims to target those people specifically. She continues
to say It is horrible that people who pride themselves on being intelligent modern individuals
still stereotype and discriminate against people because of their race, colour, creed, appearance

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and views, showing how strongly she shuns the idea of people practicing such exigence
(Schaik).
Green opens his discussion with a story of a black man who was shot by the police for
reaching into his pocket to take out his identification. Immediately, we can see how Green is
implying, through an extreme example, how prejudice and discrimination based on color is
unacceptable. In recent years, stories like this one have proven to grasp the media and the
peoples attention because of how astonishingly racist they are. Green uses this story to capture
the audiences attention and to get them to understand the exigence of discrimination and its
cruciality. Green and Schaik both are communicating to the audience of the problem of
discrimination and how only humans have the power to fix the problem. This concept is not
unlike Grant-Davies definition of the audience as those who can help resolve the exigence:
those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of
change (Grant-Davie 351).
Continuing with Schaik, she begins narrating her earliest memories of childhood
discrimination and its effects on her. She again describes the idea that even in her childhood
discrimination was as evident as it is today when she says that although she had been told that
society has grown up since then it has become painfully obvious that our views are very much
the same as they were then (Schaik). Schaik narrates how she and her family were discriminated
against for being of low income and status and for having a child who had special needs. Schaik
points out that she is currently a preschool teacher, giving herself much more credibility, and still
finds discrimination in various ways. She is credible in that she has established herself as
actively taking part in a discourse community or a group of individuals bound by a common
interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated as
described by James E. Porter (Porter 400). She is part of the school and actively interacting with

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the teachers and students, therefore knowing better than most if and how the new generation of
children are discriminating against one another. Her impact on the school and its impact on her
through the use of social acts correlates well with Charles Bazermans idea of and genre systems
(Bazerman 368).
Building off of Schaiks use of the idea of discourse community, Green mentions how
different factors such as race, gender, religion, age, or physical traits affects many aspects of our
life including what discourse communities will accept us. Examples he uses include the denial of
jobs based on race or gender rather than qualifications, and being pulled over on the road
because of skin color. While Schaiks discussion of discourse is mostly narrative, Greens is
mostly informative. He is not necessarily arguing that discrimination is immoral but is strongly
implying it as he describes many examples that are unrelated to his personal experience as to
why it would be so.
Schaik explains that growing up, she has dealt with being labeled a dumb blonde, a
simple housewife, and an unfit parent solely because of her gender and appearance. She conveys
detailed stories about how she has been discriminated against in public by strangers even while
with her own children. Schaik concludes her text by arguing that discrimination must be ended
so that future generations may live free from it and live respectful lives. Positive constraints can
be drawn from Schaiks story as she was directly involved in every situation of exigence that she
described. On the other hand, Green has the negative constraint of not being directly involved in
any of what he states and thus loses some credibility among his audience.
Both Schaik and Green make use of rhetorical strategies in ways that make them
appealing and perhaps even motivational to their audiences. They have two completely different
approaches to the same subject but have very similar points. They use a very commonly known
topic of exigence, discrimination, as a way to connect their ideas of audience, discourse, and
constraints in their texts.

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Works Cited
Bazerman, Charles. Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity
and People Wardle and Downs, 366-393. Print.
Grant-Davie, Keith. Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents Wardle and Downs, 349-363.
Print.
Green, Hank. "Prejudice & Discrimination: Crash Course Psychology #39." YouTube. YouTube,
17 Nov. 2014. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.
Porter, James E. Intertextuality and the Discourse Community Wardle and Downs, 396-406.
Print.
Schaik, Sirena Van. "Discrimination: Then and Now, Our Image in Todays Society." The
Feminist EZine. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.
Wardle, Elizabeth and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. New York:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. Print.

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