First of all, one of the examples of racism in the news is during this pandemic, when people in western countries see Asians as the people carrying the virus; In an article written by The Guardian, Cathy Hong, an Asian living in the states, explained that her friend living in New York has a child that experiences bullying during school for having the coronavirus as he is an Asian.  This not only shows the lack of information in those countries but also shows that people would act without doing thorough thinking or researching.

    Secondly, while reading The Merchant of Venice, when Portia was talking to her servant about the different suitors wanting to marry her, Portia expressed her concerns for the Prince of Morocco’s skin color. Another example of this was during Launcelot and his dad discussed leaving his job. The play did not provide good reasoning why Launcelot would want to leave Shylock other than thinking that jews are “devils” therefore wanting to find a job at Bassanio. In these two scenarios, we could see that both Portia and Launcelot did not hold a grudge against the “victims” rather, they just hate them for the race/skin color. Even worse, Portia hasn’t even seen the Prince before judging the prince.

    The events happening recently as well as in the play are similar, as many of the times people with prejudice tend to listen to others’ opinions creating a biased opinion before meeting them. This explains the lack of information, and how we should be more thorough for our research before handing out the verdict.

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Rough Draft