The Turtle And The Scorpion Response

The fable, The Turtle and the Scorpion, was the inspiration for my creation. This old tale is about a scorpion who asks a turtle for a ride, but the turtle with its previous knowledge was hesitant about helping the Scorpion across the water. After much convincing, the cunning scorpion persuaded the turtle that it would be illogical for it to sting the turtle because it would because them both to drown. After the scorpion got on board, the turtle swam across the water and halfway through the scorpion stung him. Petrified, the turtle questioned why he would do such a thing and his logic behind it because now they will both drown. In response, the scorpion stated that “it has nothing to do with logic” the scorpion sadly replied, “it’s just my nature.” (The Scorpion and the Turtle). I chose this to answer the question whether racism is a natural tendency of humanity, or is it caused by society? In this case, I used the scorpion to

This shows how on each side of the spectrum naturally people seem fearful of people that do not look like them based on stereotypes they have heard. For example, how the turtle heard scorpions sting people and so he was uneasy to trust him. It is natural to be fearful of something and even resentful to something that is not familiar. Also in cases like in “Defining Racism” by Daniel Tatum, where he has gone to 3-4-year-olds (almost all were white) and asked them to draw a picture of an American Indian and most were stumped. Once he asked for them to draw an Indian it was the same stereotype (feather with a scary weapon) with the person in each piece. Most described that Peter Pan was their main inspiration. This demonstrates how people based looks and other assumptions based on untrustworthy sources can lead to this offensive behavior and an underlining