"Everywhere, it seems, there are clear and positive signs that people are becoming more respectful of one another's differences. "
In your opinion, how accurate is the view expressed above? Use reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading to develop your position.
In determining whether we are becoming more respectful of one another's differences, one must examine overt actions and underlying motives, as well as examining whether our differences are increasing or decreasing. The issue, therefore, is quite complex, and the answer is unclear.
Disrespect for one another's differences manifests itself in various forms of prejudice and discrimination. Since the civil rights arid feminist movements of the 60s and 70s, it would seem that we have made significant progress toward eliminating racial and sexual discrimination. Antidiscriminatory laws in the areas of employment housing, and education, now protect all significant minority groups-racial minorities and women, the physically challenged and, more recently, homosexuals. Movies and television shows, which for better or worse have become the cynosure of our cultural attention, now tout the rights of minorities, encouraging acceptance of and respect for others.
However much of this progress is forced upon us legislatively. Without Title 10 and its progenies, would we voluntarily refrain from the discriminatory behavior that the laws prevent? Perhaps not. Moreover, signs of disrespect are all around us today. Extreme factions still rally around bigoted | demagogues; the number of "hate crimes" is increasing alarmingly; and school-age children seem to ^flaunt a disrespect toward adults as never before. Finally, what appears to be respect for one another's differences may in fact be an increasing global homogeneity-mat is, we are becoming more and more Hike.
In sum, on a societal level it is difficult to distinguish between genuine respect for one another's differences on the one hand and legislated morality and increasing homogeneity on the other. Accordingly, the claim that we are becoming more respectful of one another's differences is somewhat dubious.
