Navarre Latchman

Oral Presentation

Topic: Discrimination

Theme: Racial Discrimination

I chose to do a speech because I believe that allows me to simply convey information about this

situation of Racial Discrimination and it is quite easily understood by all audiences. This genre

also allows me to deliver the information in a factual, yet thought-provoking fashion.

Additionally, a formal register was used because it sets a serious tone and targets those in

authority that can implement policies to deal with racial discrimination in all contexts

.Speech

Racism is a disgrace to our human race, a sickness, to our already disease ridden society. Would

you define the sky by a cloud? How about the ocean by a drop? No, but society defines who you

are all based on colour of your skin. But who you truly are is not only skin deep. Society has

taught us to give labels, to call these people 'black' and those people 'white' and we have sadly

accepted our own labels as fact. So if you were never given a label, what would you be? Black,

Asian, Indian? You might sit down and pick and choose. But no, if the world never gave us

labels we would all be one, we would all be united. No longer would we be living in an era

where we teach our successors to call them 'Black' people and those 'White' people. Scientists
have already concluded that we are all a 'mixing pot' of 'flavours'. A recent study published by

Mark Stoneking, a leading geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,

suggested that our genes can be traced back to a common ancestor known as the "Mitochondrial

Eve" dating back on average, as recently as 100000 years ago. However, some of us decided to

do the world a 'favor' by creating a figment of our imaginations known as race, which we use to

hate, segregate and discriminate. So let us end this hate, vaccinate this disease and bury this fatal

blunder six feet under. As the great Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "I have a dream, that my

four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of

their skin, but by the content of their character," which is quite a powerful statement, however

these expectations have not been fulfilled. As shown in a study done by researchers at Harvard

University which was conducted from 1989 to 2015, based on the concept of "Employment

Discrimination", which is defined as the different treatment of two equally qualified individuals

on account of their gender, race, age, disability, religion, etc. They studied upwards of 54000 job

applications submitted for more than 25000 job positions. They proceeded to conclude that on

average, "White applicants receive 36% more callbacks than equally African Americans." Sadly,

these individuals have not been judged on their characters, only on the basis of race. In the light

of this prevalent issue, another arises. The fact that suicide rates among minority groups such as
Latinos and African Americans are skyrocketing is no nonchalant problem to be left undealt

with. Data published by the Centre for Suicide Prevention and Research at the Columbus

Hospital, showed a recently identified trend in suicide rates among African American and Latino

teenagers. The suicide rates have doubled from 2001 to 2017, from 7 suicides per hundred

thousand to a staggering 14.6 per hundred thousand, mainly due to the prevalence of hate speech

against races on social media and bullying in the form of racial slurs. This can only put to an

abrupt end if we appreciate instead of segregate. We were not meant to be labelled like groceries

on supermarket shelves, no man can label a creation so diverse, the FDA cannot label our DNA.

So why must we hate on each other and berate our brothers and sisters on the basis of skin

colour. We are all interconnected, like the roots of one tree. One family tree, I like to call

Humanity.