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Running head: TOLERANCE IN A THRIVING SOCIETY

Tolerance in a Thriving Society

Beatriz Lima COMM 171-108 Professor Marzena Thursday, April 6th, 2017

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TOLERANCE IN A THRIVING SOCIETY

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Tolerance in a Thriving Society

Could you picture yourself living in a society where your opinions and beliefs are not respected? A society in which you have no freedom to be who you truly are? Unfortunately, that is the reality in many parts of the world, either because of a tyrant leader in some middle eastern countries or because of its political and economic position – vide communist China. Luckily, Canada is a free country with an extremely high tolerance for different groups of people, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about its southern neighbour, the United States of America. Numerous aspects are responsible for defining a free society, however three aspects seem to be more important nowadays, especially in a society as divided as the U.S.A. The three main aspects that define a free society in today’s world includes its religious, race and LGBTQ+ tolerance. Religious freedom has been a current topic in the American news lately, especially after President Trump imposed a travel ban on over 1.3 million people due to their religious faith. President Trump says he is trying to protect America from ISIS, but according to The Statistics Portal (2016), in the past 30 years more than 50% of terrorist attacks in the United States were delivered by Caucasians Americans. According to Mallicote (2017), “Trump has provoked our enemies, alienated our allies and given ISIS a decade's worth of recruiting material”. Trump has shown the world the consequences of not having empathy for others and the terrible outcomes of his religious intolerances. Unlike Canada, the U.S. is known for its segregation, that is why the discussion of racial tolerance is very important. Although many other countries had slaves and a slavery period, it is

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possible to notice how even nowadays, parts of the U.S. seem to still be stuck in that era. Different protests emerge every month, such as Black Lives Matter, to display the inequality and injustice that a large group of people suffers daily. According to the Official #BlackLivesMatter Organization (2017), The Black Lives Matter movement has the intention to highlight all the ways in which Black people are left with no power at the hands of the state, discussing about how Black lives are being denied basic human rights and dignity. According to Howard (2015), a study by Dr. Colin Holbrook, a scientist at UCLA, showed that Afro – American sounding names are less likely to get called for a job interview when compared to white sounding names. According to the Canadian scholar Lester B. Pearson, a government has the responsibility to “assist in protecting and raising the living standards of all (…)” (Pearson, 2017), therefore any government institution should be able to provide its population with good living standards and opportunities, independent of race. Even though Lester B. Pearson is a Canadian scholar, his theory can be applied to any government body. In the past, LGBTQ+ rights have been questioned, denied, and changed in the United States. Until 2015, U.S. politicians got a say on who had the right to marry, and that varied by state. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of same – sex marriage nationwide, and according to Lewis (20017), upsetting a long list of Republican politicians. Unfortunately, even though same – sex marriage is legal across the United States, some still have problems with it. According to Feldman (2017), a recent example happened in Texas in 2015 when the Texas Supreme Court tried to revoke the rights of same – sex marriage. Even though the case was dismissed, it shows how the U.S. are not truly a free society. In conclusion, for a democratic society to thrive, it needs to understand the concepts of religious, race and LGBTQ+ tolerance. In the text “Implications of a Free Society” by Pearson,

TOLERANCE IN A THRIVING SOCIETY

the author defends that a free society “respects first of all a person for what he is, not who he is (…) It aims at equality of opportunity” (Pearson, 2017). By respecting basic individual differences, such as religion, race and sexual orientation, a society will thrive and be free.

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