Prejudice in Scotland

Prejudice:

"Literally means to ' pre-judge '. That is to form an opinion before knowing the facts of a situation.Ignorance is a factor in causing prejudice. Prejudice, like the word 'bias' can be either negative or positive. It is possible to be prejudiced in favour of someone or prejudiced against someone".

To help you research for your essays and speeches I've found some sites that might provide you with some useful information (F and S in AFOREST possibly...):

General Prejudice in Scotland

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/newsandcomment/Pages/Noplaceforprejudice.aspx
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/09/18318/27582
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7138538.stm
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/205750/0054713.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3151062.stm

Homophobia

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/02/19133153/3

Travellers

http://www.journalonline.co.uk/Extras/1005097.aspx
http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/getadvice/advice_topics/finding_a_place_to_live/gypsiestravellers/about_gypsiestravellers
http://www.comelookatus.org/
http://www.time-travellers.org.uk/
http://www.gypsy-traveller.org/cyberpilots/Projects/scotland_newspaper.htm
http://www.highland.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3B481DEC-2D81-4EB3-90C9-83B58177E90C/0/Item6VAL408.pdf
http://www.scottishtravellered.net/
http://www.scolag.org/journal/articles/2008_SCOLAG_66-67.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6427391.stm

Anti-Polish

http://news.scotsman.com/tacklingracisminscotland/Rise-in-race-crimes-linked.3299508.jp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7316261.stm

Churchill and "A Few Good Men"

Continuation 0f AFOREST HERO (and by that I don't mean the thieving Robin Hood!).

We continued to look at some of the all-time great speeches - Independence Day "Good morning..." and Colonel Jessep's "You can't handle the truth!". You've learnt about some effective oratorical techniques and you've seen them in practice - now it's time to think about putting these techniques into practice when we write persuasive pieces.

MLK - questions...

So... today we looked at some questions on MLK's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. From the last 2 lessons you should have discovered that MLK's speech is rife with metaphors. Metaphors are a type of literary technique known as "imagery" - which means.....?

It helps us (the reader) create a picture of what is being written/talked about in our minds.

So - for example - the metaphor filled line:

"One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination"

This evokes an image in the audience's mind of a black-man chained up, of the black-man as a slave. From this use of metaphor MLK vividly shows us the lot of the black-man in 1960s America. Although they are technically free-men, in reality they are still treated as slaves shackled not with chains and manacles of iron but by means of segregation (Jim Crow laws) and discrimination. They may not be physically chained anymore, but the white-man's laws and racist attitude towards the Negro population ensure that they are still not granted the privileges of the free-man.

Next lesson we will finish off the questions and then get started on understanding the purpose of speeches and persuasive writing before moving on to look at some specific rhetorical techniques used by speech writers.

"I Have a Dream...."

Here you go - the moving and powerful speech by Martin Luther King Jr. (the man with the excessively long name):

Martin Luther King's America

To start with on your prejudice unit you will be focusing mainly on MLK's famous "I Have a Dream" speech - but before we have a look at the speech it's important that we have an understanding of the America in which MLK lived.

Freedom, democracy and equality for all...? The (in)famous rallying cries of the United States of America - the land of the free. Yet were these ideals of the "American Dream" actually actively practised in MLK's USA? No.

MLK lived in an America rife with racism, where the black man and the white man lived completely seperate lives. He lived in a USA that actively encouraged segregation of the races so that black-people and white-people were effectively banned from sharing:

• Bus station waiting rooms and ticket windows
• Railroad cars
• Restaurants
• Schools and public parks
• Toilets
• Swimming pools
• Cemeteries
• Drinking fountains

They also suffered from something called disenfranchisement in the Southern States - rules that were put in place to make it extremely difficult for black people to exercise their democratic right.