Over the course of time, our perception of human rights has changed drastically, considering back in the day these rights were only given to a certain group of people. The main contributor to this is the natural divide between races and their conflicting cultures, where one race believes that their values and beliefs rank superior to another. Even today, prejudice beliefs and media outlets cause us to alter our views and dehumanize others based on both race and culture. Although basic human rights should be given to every person, throughout history the perspectives and lifestyles of certain people have barricaded others from receiving these rights.
Mankind has dealt with integrating civil right laws in many civilizations since BCE, but many of those laws in that time period were only granted to the men …show more content…
Columbus, a renowned explorer, is an example of an individual that used his power of authority to dehumanize a group of people based solely on their differing cultures. During his expedition, Columbus’s crew recalled how the Indians got treated worse than a beast; they got treated “like the excrement in a public square” (Koning, 1991, p. 70). In a time where religion took priority over everything else, this was the normal outcome for those who decided against converting to another religion. Koning (1991) goes on to explain that Columbus was as a highly religious Catholic, considering that it was a notably religious and extremist time period; subsequently, one of his main reasons to go on this expedition was to convert the native people to Catholicism (p. 35). When he noticed that the Indians refused to cooperate, he took it upon himself to strip them of their rights and, consequently, branded them as savages. Based on this religious and bigoted era of time, he chose to value his own personal beliefs, causing an abundance of people to be enslaved or
Mankind has dealt with integrating civil right laws in many civilizations since BCE, but many of those laws in that time period were only granted to the men …show more content…
Columbus, a renowned explorer, is an example of an individual that used his power of authority to dehumanize a group of people based solely on their differing cultures. During his expedition, Columbus’s crew recalled how the Indians got treated worse than a beast; they got treated “like the excrement in a public square” (Koning, 1991, p. 70). In a time where religion took priority over everything else, this was the normal outcome for those who decided against converting to another religion. Koning (1991) goes on to explain that Columbus was as a highly religious Catholic, considering that it was a notably religious and extremist time period; subsequently, one of his main reasons to go on this expedition was to convert the native people to Catholicism (p. 35). When he noticed that the Indians refused to cooperate, he took it upon himself to strip them of their rights and, consequently, branded them as savages. Based on this religious and bigoted era of time, he chose to value his own personal beliefs, causing an abundance of people to be enslaved or