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Francisco Yun
Professor Derohanessian
English 115
22 November 2014
Ignorance Is Bliss, Except When It Comes To Discrimination
America has always been known as the home of diversity. With so many distinct
ethnicities and physical differences, its hard not to find things about one another that we dont
agree with or that we can make fun of for being different. With this issue that most, if not all,
Americans encounter, Discrimination sparks and grows within this nation like a wildfire.
However, discrimination is not limited only to racism, but the way we judge others that are
different from us. For example, People who are more obese than others might seem strange,
funny-looking, and even disgusting is more extreme situations to those who deem themselves as
average weight. Discrimination is often ignored and is taken too lightly to the point where
anyone can make a joke about someone and everyone laughs. Discrimination has gone so far that
it has permanently affected the way everyone thinks about a certain group. I believe that
discrimination should not be disregarded because, not only is it very offensive, it can be harmful
without any intention of doing so. Discrimination should come to an end because it can be
harmful and offensive.
Discrimination is not an urban legend that is to be ignored. It is a huge, prevalent issue
that we see in the world today. Many ethnicities suffer from discrimination. For example, the
general stereotype for Asians are they are known to speak[s] poor English, and lack[s] basic
social skills and/or... hard-working, intelligent as stated by Racheal A. Ruble and Yan Bing
Zhang in their article Stereotypes of Chinese international students held by Americans. Although

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people acknowledge that Asians are supposed to be smart based on this stereotype, many people
look down on them and second-guess their intelligence based of the fact that some Asians,
especially immigrants, cannot speak the English language as fluently as the average American.
In the Amy Tans, Asian-American novelist, story Mother Tongue from her book The
Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings, she talks about a time where her mother got a CAT scan
for a benign brain tumor, but the doctors ignored her request to receive the results until Tan
asked for them in her fluent English. She goes, when the doctor finally called her daughter,
me, who spoke perfect Englishlo and beholdwe had assurances the CAT scan would be
found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering
my mother has gone through for a most regrettable mistake. Even in a professional workplace,
such as the hospital in Tans story, discrimination is not a rare thing. It is a common issue that
most people just look over. With this excerpt from Tans story, it shows the dangers of
discriminating and disregarding someone based off a stereotype. Discrimination should not be
overlooked if it can cause harm and distress.
Judging others for being different is very rude and offensive, but publicly making fun of
them on television takes the offense to a whole new level of insolence, especially in Hollywood.
In author Marisa Meltzers Are Fat Suits the New Blackface?, Meltzer criticizes the use of fat
suits in Hollywood movies such as Shallow Hal. She says, during a preview for Shallow Hal,
no one in the audience saw fit to register sibilant protest against one of the most disturbing and
offensive cinematic trends in recent memory: the fat suit. Meltzer goes on to say, Watching
actual fat people on the big screen would be so authentically painfulbecause fat hatred us still
deeply entrenched in American culturethat audiences would be unable to laugh. She believes
that fat suits are very demeaning to those who are actually obese and is telling us that people

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dont like to see overweight people on television because they think they are disturbing. By
putting fat suits on well-known skinny actor and making them act fat, it shows the public that
making fun of fat people is okay. Making fun of obese people is definitely not okay and should
not be some kind of casual joke. This can be very offensive and rude to obese people because
they know they have a weight problem, but they dont need everyone calling them out and
making fun of them for it. With a whole nation now discriminating against overweight people,
how can we not ignore this? In another incident, in 1996, where Detroit police were placed under
fire after mocking a dead fat woman. In an article about this event, they were said to have made
offensive remarks about her size, raider her refrigerator and played video games waiting for help
in moving the body. The officers also dragged the woman by the ankles up the steps and across
the lawn to a waiting truck, according to the article, instead of treating the body in a respectful
manner. This unethical treatment of this woman was solely brought up by discrimination. Those
officers did not respect her as a human being because she was fat. Not only did the relatives of
the woman filed a complaint about the officers in question, but they received criticism from
NAAFA, National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. Regina Williams, chairwoman of
NAAFAs Detroit department, said Where does it say a persons size decides their worth as a
human being? With harmful and unethical treatment of obese people dominant in respectable
professions such as police officers, how can we expect normal citizen to respect them as well? It
was great that NAAFA and other groups are protesting against this; however, it doesnt change
the fact that Discrimination is still overlooked by many.
Discrimination against people who look different that others has become such a common
issue that it has been taken too lightly in our society. Some people might say that it is right for
certain groups to be placed in stereotypes because, the majority of the time, some of the

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stereotype can be true. It may be true that Asians have the highest percent of people going to
college or who receive a bachelors degree or more (Statisics by Business Insider); however, one
must not generalize a stereotype with the entire group. It cannot be proven that, for example,
every Asian is smart. We have to treat others with respect, even though they may look different
from us or act differently. We cant label someone as some side-show freak. We cant openly
accept these stereotypes because they will come off as offensive and vulgar to the people in those
groups. Discrimination is a huge issue in America that we just tend to ignore that pass of as part
of American culture. It has assimilated itself to conversations with our friends, with our coworkers, and even to those we make fun of. This behavior should not be ignored, as it can be
emotionally damaging and belligerent to those in question.

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Works Cited
Lubin, Lynne Guey and Gus. "Asian Americans Are Smarter, Richer, And Harder-Working
Than Everyone Else." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 01 June 2013. Web. 24
Nov. 2014. <http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-asian-americans-charts-20136>.
Meltzer, Marisa. "Are Fat Suits the New Blackface?" Bitchfest (2006): 267. Print.
"Police Under Fire for Mocking Dead Fat Woman." The Globe and Mail, (1996): E.11-E.-1.
Ruble, RA, and YB Zhang. "Stereotypes of Chinese International Students Held by Americans.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37.2 (2013): 202-211.
Tan, Amy. The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. New York: Putnam, 2003. Print.