The stories of overcoming the odds may be considered both good and bad for society because there are always two sides to the consequences of one’s actions. According to Carney and Patel, for example, the role of people who overcome the odds and contribute to society is enormous because they bring out the positive in people and create an improved environment (188) (p. 61). They both mention Martin Luther King as an example of a person who successfully went against all the odds and brought society to public benefit. On the other hand, the story of MLK shows how society would always become divided by the outcomes of decisive actions that were aimed at the greater good and not one’s achievements. The race-related challenge went beyond a mere social issue and became a trendy topic where the idea is that people would still need hope in the form of a person who goes against all the odds to overcome prejudice and bias.
As Brennan points out in his book on institutional racism, eventual bias is inescapable when there are specific elements of a community included in the equation (p. 32). This means that such heroes raised within the community are necessary to point out specific issues that plague society. According to Zhao et al., the majority of questions that arise among the members of the modern society revolve around the idea that the greater good is unreachable because of the positive examples from the past that eventually divided the community (p. 355).
The above idea is also supported in the article written by Kahn and Martin in 2016. They outline the issue as the inability of modern society to recognize the importance of addressing the topic of race from the point of view of segregated populations (Kahn and Martin, p. 106). This argument is based on the idea that the refracted outlooks of those who were not associated with racism or race-based prejudices in any way would not be able to comprehend the value of actions performed by those who went against the odds to introduce specific changes into their community. Overall, it may be concluded that society would weaken without individuals who overcome all the odds, even if their actions would create confusion within the society.
Works Cited
Brennan, Fernne. Race Rights Reparations: Institutional Racism and the Law. Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Carney, Nikita. “All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media.” Humanity & Society, vol. 40, no. 2, 2016, pp. 180-199.
Kahn, Kimberly Barsamian, and Karin D. Martin. “Policing and Race: Disparate Treatment, Perceptions, and Policy Responses.” Social Issues and Policy Review, vol. 10, no. 1, 2016, pp. 82-121.
Patel, Tina. Race and Society. Sage, 2016.
Zhao, Jihong Solomon, et al. “The Impact of Race/Ethnicity and Quality-of-Life Policing on Public Attitudes toward Racially Biased Policing and Traffic Stops.” Crime & Delinquency, vol. 61, no. 3, 2015, pp. 350-374.