Duck Discrimination and Quackery

Duck Dynasty’ and Quackery is an article from December 20, 2013 which was published in New York Times by Charles M. Blow. In this article, Blow has mentioned his dissatisfaction on a comment made by Robertson in an interview in GQ magazine. Robertson is 67 years old originally from Louisiana (Jim Crow South), though he mentioned that he had never saw the mistreatment of any black people; he also told that he had never heard any one singing “Blues”. His words directly point out insensitivity and ignorance of African-American history.

My first conclusion from this article is that Robertson used his right to free speech in unsuitable way. It’s true that we have rights to give our view, but we need to know that our speech should not hamper any member of our society. As we know words are powerful than swords, so whatever decision we make in our mind, first we need to analyze its consequences and only we need to pour it to the public.

Everyone should be conscious that mass communication is very powerful nowadays. Similarly, my second conclusion is related to the line mentioned by Blow “… conservatives including Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a possible presidential candidate-rushing to his defense.” So, called a possible presidential candidate is defensing Robertson, this means to me that conservatives are still in favor of slavery. Whatever the reason is, political parties

even conservatives should support the fact that Robertson has done mistake by falsifying his interview. Being a political leader, Gov. Bobby Jindal should not have spoken in the favor of Robertson.

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This shows direct discrimination towards African American societies. Likewise, my third conclusion is that “everyone knows history, so one should not talk against the history”. Being born in southern state “Louisiana”, he should not have exaggerated that he has never, with his eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. We all know about the history of Louisiana. Louisiana helped to establish the architecture for Jim Crow. Not only this, Robertson has also mentioned that he has never heard anyone singing Blues. His comments also display a staggering ignorance about the place and meaning of song in African- American. Every event of history has its own importance, so we need to respect our history. Though we see that in real life or not, it does not matter, but we don’t have any rights to go against the history of African- American society.

During the time of slavery, black people had faced lots of tortures. Mostly in southern states, Black were treated as a low graded people. There was not any law regarding slavery. There was buying and selling between slaves in that period. As I have already mentioned that, every history has its own meaning. It has collaborated happiness, sorrows, victory as well as defeat of our ancestors. Robertson’s denial of racism and discrimination will contribute to human suffering. Black people have faced lots of discrimination in their past. His comments about not seeing any discrimination between black and white and not hearing Blues song is completely rude. It shows disrespect towards the history of African American Society. His comments directly show that he is denying the fact that there was slavery in the past and people used to sing Blues when they used to feel extreme sorrows and pain for their own situations.

Robertson comments has created a social conflict in our community. People who knows about the history will never forgive him for whether he mentioned in his comments. Even Bow has mentioned that, liberal and conservative parties were in conflict which each other due to the comments given by Robertson. Likewise, his denial of racism and discrimination has also created a “social issue”. Everyone who has seen his interview will say that he is a liar. He told that he has not seen any discrimination in racism in Louisiana yet. This is completely fake. Maybe he is trying to grab the attention of media as well as every other people. Before I read about this article by Blow, I have never heard about “Duck Dynasty”. Like me, many people on social media had also read about his fishy comments. Previously he was a simple TV show actor, but after this comment, many people know him. This might be the reason .i.e he might want to be popular, so he talked about those things in public.

Though, whatever the reason might be, it has created lots of social issues. Main issue is he has ignored his own place. Recently, I had some conversation with my professor who was from Louisiana. I asked him about the slavery in Louisiana. He told me that before 60 years ago, he had seen lots of discrimination related to racism and slavery was also one of them. Robertson is 67 years old, and my professor is 60 years old. They both are of same age group, so my point is that Robertson is hiding something from us. Likewise, he has also ignored the meaning of the son. For him, it might be just a song, but for African- American’s- it is a song by their ancestors; it’s a pain faced by their fore father. Every person respects their culture and traditions, likewise they are also possessive about their culture. Robertson misjudgment about African- American history has created a misunderstanding between peoples in a society.

The given chart illustrates the life experiences because of race by southern whites and southern blacks. This chart has mentioned about the discrimination experienced by southern white and southern black in their day to day life. Likewise, it has also illustrated the percentages of both southern black and southern white people who has been treated with less respect, received poorer service, and who has been racially profiled by police. According to the chart, we can tell that southern black has faced twice more discrimination than that of southern whites. Also, we can clearly notice that southern blacks have faced almost 81% discrimination in their day to day life. By seeing these types of discriminations between southern blacks and southern whites, we can easily understand that southern blacks were treated with less respect in those days. 69% of southern blacks received poorer service. Southern backs were not allowed to send their children to the schools, they were out of reach of hospitals, court, and they were not allowed to vote also.

Also, we can notice the vast differences between the percentages of southern whites and southern blacks who were racially profiled by police. Police are termed as a savior of our surroundings. Their duty is to maintain safety and security in our country. But being a police officers, they judge people according to their color. They don’t give blacks to confess their truth, instead they give physically torture to them and racially profiled them. This chart shows that Robertson was wrong, because not only southern blacks but southern whites have also faced some problems regarding discriminations, and disrespect in their societies. This means that Robertson mentioning about not seeing any discrimination is fallacies: discrimination is faced by every southerner whether blacks or whites. Main reasons behind discrimination are poverty and illiteracy.

Overall, after reading this article, first thing I learned that we need to use our right to free speech in a proper way. It might not be applicable, but I recommend that one should not be asked about racism in public. Until and unless the whole interview is about racism, interviewer should not ask any questions regarding race and racism. Also, as mentioned by Blow, a possible presidential candidate Gov. Bobby Jindal defensed Robertson’s comment. Robertson was wrong, though political leader defensed him. So, my second recommendation is, political leaders whether they belong from liberal or conservation, they should think about the emotions of citizens first, rather than their principles and objectives. Likewise, my third recommendation is, it is most important for parents as well as teacher to teach their children to respect every people. They should not be taught about discrimination. It is a responsibility of an elder to teach their children about respect towards every culture and traditions.