Mirrors And Windows By Patricia Williams Analysis

Words: 717
Pages: 3

In the powerful essay, “Mirrors and Windows” by Patricia J. Williams, Williams sends an eye opening message to the reader on the topic of racism. The essay begins with Williams addressing her issues during a faculty meeting on the topic of racism. She intentionally mentions the response of a white professor towards her statements. Instead of dealing with the issue at hand, the professor suggested to simply laugh it off. Basically, the professor told Williams to take a serious matter and just ignore it by making it into joke. This obviously didn’t sit well with Williams who spent the rest of the essay shedding light to why the topic is not something to merely laugh about. Williams’ central argument was based on the story, and case, of Tawana Brawley. Brawley was a fifteen-year-old black female who disappeared for four days …show more content…
I knew many people, including the media, portrayed their opinions the way they wanted everyone to understand something. Yet, I didn’t know that they seemed to lose the bigger picture in the whole debacle. Not only that, but they force their opinions down the throats of people in pursuit of changing how others view the situation at hand. With Brawley’s case there was no respect for her or her privacy. I also noticed that she was denied many things. I didn’t understand why everyone’s main mission was to make her look like the culprit. At the end of the day no one was there to really know what happened, but there should have been more respect for the case. Everyone is entitled to there opinion, but there is no need for media to try to convince the general public of theirs. Williams slightly mentioned an idea about if Brawley wasn’t black and the rapists weren’t white things would have been different. I personally think they way the case was treated just because of racism is sad. I hope that as a society we’ve grown since 1987, and if not, some serious changes need to be