Refection Of Essay:

In Humanities we were asked to write an essay connecting three time periods with one theme. These were: the Salem Witch Trails, based on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the Red Scare and McCarthyism, and current day problems. I wrote my essay about the intolerance of difference in these three time periods. While writing this essay I learned a lot about how much fear of difference resulted in horrible moments in history like the Salem Witch Trials and The Red Scare. I also found many connections, between what is happening now to the past. I had a very strong thesis. I spent a lot time on my thesis because it was the beginning I really wanted to start strong. I had a couple mistakes with grammar and and punctuation, I think that this can be fixed by someone else reading it over. My tutor and I read it over part of it but didn’t have enough time to finish. I think the more I edit it with her I think the better it will be, I should also have Suzanne read it over too. I think that I could’ve spent more time on my conclusion, so next time I will take more time with writing that. For this assignment it think that each of my analysis were very similar to each other, though that may have been since times I was writing about were very similar. I also think that I proved my point well. Overall, I think that the essay is very strong even though the conclusion could be stronger.

Here is the essay:

Ruby Wexler                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Humanities

7th Grade                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Comparative essay

3/6/17   

Discrimination Against Difference

By Ruby Wexler

No one is exactly the same. This is impossible, so then why are people intolerant of those who differ from themselves? Accusations against, and intolerance of those who are different have been a theme throughout history. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692, The Red Scare of 1950, and now, Donald Trump, president in 2017, all demonstrate this intolerance. During the Salem Witch Trails anyone who stood out was accused of witchcraft. Two-hundred-forty-five years later the Red Scare struck, this was a period where everyone feared communists. Anyone who disagreed with the government or refused to swear an oath to America, was accused of being a communist. And now President Donald Trump is intolerant of gay, transgender, and people of color, and anyone who doesn’t agree with him. In times of hysteria, people resort to accusing or blaming those who they perceive as different. We are afraid of what we don’t understand, that is to say we are afraid of what is different.

During the Salem Witch Trials, fear ruled over the Puritan society. Many horrendous things were happening like people accusing others, mainly people who stood out in the society, like enslaved Africans, of witchcraft. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, explores the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials. In the beginning of the book, Abigail, a girl living in Salem with her uncle, is blaming Tituba for witchcraft. Tituba lives and works for Abigail’s uncle, the reverend. Tituba is being blamed for witchcraft because of the color of her skin. Abigail tells her uncle why she suspects Tituba. “ABIGAIL: Sometimes I wake and find myself standing in the open doorway and not a stitch on my body! I always hear laughing in my sleep. I hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me…” (Miller, p.62). Abigail connects Tituba’s ethnicity to witchcraft. She mentions her native songs as evidence that she is a witch. Tituba is being accused by Abigail because she is the minority. Tituba is an enslaved, black woman from Barbados, which makes her the lowest person in the social hierarchy. She is surrounded by white, English, settlers, to them she is an easy target. It is easy for the others to believe that she is a witch. Because she has different customs, speak a different language, and she has different colored skin. However, these differences should not change the way that she is treated. She is different from the majority, but this does not mean that she is not human. The Puritans blamed all their problems of the devil and his worshipers (witches). Because they needed someone to scapegoat. In this case witches are their target, they have no solid proof that someone was a witch so they resorted to blaming those who were different. However, the Salem Witch Trials were not the only time that fear of something or someone resulted in an unjust hunt those who stood out.

The Red Scare of 1950 was a time of panic much like the Salem Witch Trials. Instead of hunting witches they were hunting communists. Russia had recently become a communist country which caused panic, because America was afraid of communism would spread. They were searching for anyone who was a spy or part of the communist party. There was hysteria during the Red Scare and this was somewhat induced and renewed by the government, especially by Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy claimed to have a list of communists in America. “During the Red Scare, anyone whose beliefs strayed from the majority was a suspect. People who fought for racial equality were called communists, as were people who wanted to limit the development of nuclear weapons,” (Fitzgerald, p.58-59). During the Red Scare everybody was terrified of communists, everyone was accusing others. People who stood out were targeted. There was very little evidence for the accusations, so if someone was different,this was a sign that this person was possibly a spy, a communist supporter. It was easier to believe that an immigrant from Russia was a communist than an someone who’s family had lived in America for a long time. People who had different ideas, or people who were against certain things the government were doing would be under suspicion. For example people who fought for equal rights were convicted, for it could have been thought as a rebellion like what happened in Russia and the reason it was a communist country. It was often perceived as an act of support or allegiance to the communist party. McCarthy was a someone in power who targeted those who were different, and now President Trump is very similar.

Many people have inaccurate fears about others they perceive as different. When people are afraid they discriminate against those people that they may have fears of. When Obama was president he passed a law that said, transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender that they identify as, no matter what their biological gender is. Though President Trump has other views on the matter. “President Trump on Wednesday rescinded protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, overruling his own education secretary and placing his administration firmly in the middle of the culture wars that many Republicans have tried to leave behind,” (https://www.nytimes.com /2017/ 02/22/us/politics/devos-sessions-transgender-students-rights.html?ref=todaysp

aper&_r=0). President Trump is targeting a certain group of people who have done nothing wrong. By saying that people can’t use a certain bathroom because of their choice is basically saying that that person’s thoughts, their choices, and how they feel don’t matter. The basis for this is fear put out by some that a transgender person is going to attack them in the bathroom. There is no evidence that this will happen and so the claim is inadequate. Even though the claim is not true the fear is still there, this causes them to discriminate against, in this case, transgender people. President Trump and others are discriminating against those who they perceive as different based on an irrational fear.

Throughout history people who are different from the majority have been persecuted and oppressed. Difference is not bad but people accuse those who are different because they don’t understand those people. In the Salem Witch Trials people were persecuted because the Puritans needed someone to scapegoat, and the easy target was people who stood out. This happens again in the Red Scare, were the fear of communism swept the land. These are both similar to now where there are many prejudices about people who are different. Fear can make people do crazy things. The fear of the unknown, one of the biggest fears the human race has. Though you might not notice it everyone has a least a little subconscious prejudices of fear.