Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Prejudice

The recent judgment on the Trayvon Martin case and the sad demise of Ilavarasan in TN, reinforced the feeling how similar we all are. It is ironic and tragic. Though the details of the two cases are very different, fundamentally there is the common element of how our preconceived notions dictate what is perceived as aggression and what is perceived as defense.

In the Trayvon case a young unarmed black boy of seventeen is allowed by the system to be perceived as the aggressor. In the Ilavarasan case a young man of the lower caste is perceived again to be the aggressor because he married a young woman of the upper caste. And the act of aggression on them is justified defense!

'They are out to get us, so let us get them before'.

In the TN case, I don't even want to get started on the women's lib angle. Nothing so clearly brings to relief the stark reality of how women are fundamentally considered to be possessions!

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