Racial and gender prejudice in The Accused and the Central Park

Both films focus on rape which is central to the aspects of racial and gender bias of the protagonists following their cases in the court of law. Protagonists, Sarah Tobias and the central park five convicts endured prejudice through the unjust criminal justice and the police brutality. This paper aims at analysing the Accused and The central park five films to gather a deeper understanding of racial and gender prejudice is ingrained within the societal attitudes. In the Accused Film, Sarah Tobias the protagonist endured gender prejudice perpetrated by the rapists at the bar. She was sexually coerced without her consent. Accordingly, the five convicts were black and some of the Hispanic origin which ensued to false accusations of raping the central park jogger.

Given that the allegations occurred at a time when New York was experiencing police brutality, the convicts could not escape the racial conflagrations since the black, and the Hispanic people were the primary victims of the said brutality (Thornton, 2017). The convicts also endured false imprisonment because they were sentenced for the crime they had not committed. They were even coerced to confess to the crimes with no physical evidence. For instance, the boys admitted to stabbing the jogger yet they were no physical evidence of knife wounds. This results in unequal distribution of the resources. Most of the racial prejudice is fueled by a capitalist culture that leads to social conflicts. When one race becomes superior over the other, ethnic discrimination occurs as the superior race undermines the powers and roles played by inferior culture.

Peer articles review The article gender still matters by Gabriele and Plickert focuses on the workplace discrimination. The role played by gender is critical in developing healthy relationships between work and organisations (Plickert and Sterling, 2017). According to Thornton (2017), workplaces are over dominated by masculine beliefs that compel the employers to perceive men and women differently when assigning hard labour and risky tasks. Along with work allocation, women are less likely to obtain full-time employment because they are regarded as having less priority of work over their families. As a result, women are less empowered thereby reducing their motivation towards work. As Thornton (2017) argues, empowerment, strong career commitment and skill development are pivotal to job satisfaction, increased competency and personal growth. Accordingly, less empowered women become incompetent, less motivated and record low career progress (Thornton, 2017).

As a result, the appointed juries execute the trial based on their opinions and biases towards a particular case. Accordingly, during a court trial involving an aboriginal convict, the all-white jury is often prejudiced when giving the verdict of the trial (Anthony and Longman, 2017). While the panel in the United States acknowledges the impacts of racial prejudice during jury selection, they have not set aside the array of all-white juries. The article cites the court trials of Binge vs. Bennet (1988, 1989) and R vs. Failure to reduce the gaps results in heightened racial segregation purported to favor the dominating race which comprises of the Whites (Rogers and Meltzoff, 2017). Jury prejudice among the whites and the indigenous people relates to the case in the Central Park five cases in that both encounters address racial discrimination accorded to the minor races by the whites.

While the indigenous, blacks and the Hispanic are significant people in the American culture, they are discriminated almost in all aspects such as career growth, imprisonment, work allocation and distribution of resources (Rogers and Meltzoff, 2017). As depicted in the film, the five boys were falsely accused of raping the jogger and coerced to confess to the crimes they had not committed. Similarly, Elijah, the indigenous boys were falsely accused of stealing a bike which led to his death. This involves stereotypical thinking and eventually racial or gender prejudice. To eliminate prejudice, it is critical to emphasise on unity and bring members of the society together which will, in turn, promote appreciation of different cultures. This encourages cooperation and achievement of shared goals irrespective of race, gender, or religion (Ramos, 2017).