Human Rights In Josephine Baker's Speech At The March On Washington
The concept of Human Rights is one that is difficult to put into words. Simply put, the idea of human rights vary from culture to culture, therefore, the idea that human rights can be actualized for each person is impossible. The way people of certain races are treated in the U.S. differs from way that they may be treated in an area such as France as stated by Josephine Baker in her “Speech at the March on Washington”. Religious intolerance is also very relevant in many places, as seen in Elie Wiesels Night. Each country has unique cultural and societal normalities reguarding Human Rights, making it impossible for every person to have every one of the Human Rights.
The idea of this can be seen in the “Speech at the March on Washington”, …show more content…
In the U.S. for example, African-American people had an obvious history of enslavement. Although slavery was abolished, these tendencies or thoughts of white people looking down upon black people were still relevant. Baker portrays this perfectly in her speech, “But on that great big beautiful ship, I had a bad experience. A very important star was to sit with me for dinner, and at the last moment I discovered she didn’t want to eat with a colored woman. I can tell you it was some blow”(Baker 31-34). During slave times, slaves didn’t eat with their masters, plain and simple, this “Star” had been raised to think that. One thing about traditions, especially those pertaining to how you view people, are hard to change. The Nazis had also been groomed to think of people of certain sects, unhuman. These people weren’t brought up this way, and hadn’t had a history with this, but convinced by a very persuasive leader. Wiesel explains, “In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three "veteran" prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name”(Wiesel 143). The ability to de-humanize people, takes a lot of convincing and grooming, and Hitler was able to do
The idea of this can be seen in the “Speech at the March on Washington”, …show more content…
In the U.S. for example, African-American people had an obvious history of enslavement. Although slavery was abolished, these tendencies or thoughts of white people looking down upon black people were still relevant. Baker portrays this perfectly in her speech, “But on that great big beautiful ship, I had a bad experience. A very important star was to sit with me for dinner, and at the last moment I discovered she didn’t want to eat with a colored woman. I can tell you it was some blow”(Baker 31-34). During slave times, slaves didn’t eat with their masters, plain and simple, this “Star” had been raised to think that. One thing about traditions, especially those pertaining to how you view people, are hard to change. The Nazis had also been groomed to think of people of certain sects, unhuman. These people weren’t brought up this way, and hadn’t had a history with this, but convinced by a very persuasive leader. Wiesel explains, “In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three "veteran" prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name”(Wiesel 143). The ability to de-humanize people, takes a lot of convincing and grooming, and Hitler was able to do