A Hate Speech Analysis
Good afternoon Ms Jones,
I would like to start by thanking you for allowing me the opportunity to speak on behalf of Queensland students today and address the well-founded complaints which justify the removal of The Merchant of Venice from our Curriculum. So, let’s delve into it, shall we?
You know, when we consider all the hate speech on Islam right now, you’d think that we’d be a lot more sensitive with what we teach to our kids. You know, promote acceptance, world peace and those sorts of things. But instead, we’re stuck with The Merchant of Venice: an Elizabethan Playbook of sexist beliefs, overt racism and unfair treatment of minorities. I’m sure, Ms Jones, you will agree that a play which incites hate speech and physical assault towards religious minorities has no place in our curriculum.
As a member of modern society, I’m sure that you’d take a lot of offence when someone calls you a ‘racist’. But if we label Shakespeare as ‘racist’, he wouldn’t care at all. It was normal in his times for Christians to treat non-Christians as subhuman, only because the Bible blames them for the death of Jesus Christ. Shylock is stripped of his name and instead referred to as “the Jew”, “dog Jew” and “currish Jew”. Nowadays, …show more content…
There’s nowhere in the text where Shylock is portrayed as the ‘good guy’. Instead, he’s equated to the devil by the Christians. Launcelot labelled Shylock as “the devil himself”; Bassanio called him “a cruel devil”; and Solanio also tagged him as “the devil… In likeness of a Jew”, reflecting the partisan beliefs of the predominantly Christian audience of the time. Surely, we’ve evolved from having this outdated ‘black, and white’ judgement of religions; where they're either extremely great or purely evil and have moved on to a more wholesome way of thinking, where we accept everyone no matter what their beliefs
I would like to start by thanking you for allowing me the opportunity to speak on behalf of Queensland students today and address the well-founded complaints which justify the removal of The Merchant of Venice from our Curriculum. So, let’s delve into it, shall we?
You know, when we consider all the hate speech on Islam right now, you’d think that we’d be a lot more sensitive with what we teach to our kids. You know, promote acceptance, world peace and those sorts of things. But instead, we’re stuck with The Merchant of Venice: an Elizabethan Playbook of sexist beliefs, overt racism and unfair treatment of minorities. I’m sure, Ms Jones, you will agree that a play which incites hate speech and physical assault towards religious minorities has no place in our curriculum.
As a member of modern society, I’m sure that you’d take a lot of offence when someone calls you a ‘racist’. But if we label Shakespeare as ‘racist’, he wouldn’t care at all. It was normal in his times for Christians to treat non-Christians as subhuman, only because the Bible blames them for the death of Jesus Christ. Shylock is stripped of his name and instead referred to as “the Jew”, “dog Jew” and “currish Jew”. Nowadays, …show more content…
There’s nowhere in the text where Shylock is portrayed as the ‘good guy’. Instead, he’s equated to the devil by the Christians. Launcelot labelled Shylock as “the devil himself”; Bassanio called him “a cruel devil”; and Solanio also tagged him as “the devil… In likeness of a Jew”, reflecting the partisan beliefs of the predominantly Christian audience of the time. Surely, we’ve evolved from having this outdated ‘black, and white’ judgement of religions; where they're either extremely great or purely evil and have moved on to a more wholesome way of thinking, where we accept everyone no matter what their beliefs