Argumentative Essay

English-1010
I was neither shocked nor surprised when I was watching a TV show called What Would You Do. I was watching an experiment where a well-dressed woman and homeless man pretended to collapse in front of crowded street. When the well dressed-woman collapsed on the street, within four seconds people came to help her and call 911. On the other hand, when the homeless man collapsed on the street (during rush hour) no one was so eager to step in and help him. It took six minutes people to get involved. Does personal appearance influence the way people are treated? Why do well-dressed or attractive people have more advantages than their less attractive equivalent? People should not be judged according to how well-dressed they are or how attractive they are.
In everyday life we judge people based on their appearance. It’s very unkind, but we do it on a daily basis at the school, at work, or just passing someone on the street. It's not only the social level that discriminates the unattractive, but it also goes on at work. For instance, if a person dresses like a professional, he or she is more likely to get the job than the more experienced person, who might be less attractive. People think the attractive person is successful, intelligent, and hard working, even if he or she is not knowledgeable. The society we live in today helps attractive people more than physically unattractive people who have better qualities.
Every day we make assumptions about the personality of someone else based on their looks. We all say the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover!" but sadly, we do every day. We judge people by their looks. On the same TV show there was another experiment that surprised me. There was this beautiful girl pretending to steal a bicycle from a park. Everyone who asked her if the bicycle belongs to her, she made sure that they heard her well and clear that the bicycle is not hers. She hammered and sawed the chain. What would a person do if he or she would have witnessed such incident? Would they help her steal the bike? Obviously all of us will say no, but we don’t really mean it especially men when it comes to this scenario. This experiment was set four different times and every one of those men helped her steal the bicycle. Surprisingly, one man passed his wife and he went straight to the actress, and he said, “Need a hand? I can help you steal this.” His wife tried to alert him but he ignored her and cut the chain off.
I didn’t see these things just on the TV but I have also seen it in reality. One day my friend and I were walking on Third Street coming back to Sinclair. On our way homeless woman approached him and she said, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” then he said, “No” and walked away. I asked him why, and he said, “Don’t you see how she looks like, she is crazy dude, I don’t want to listen what she is about to say.” He didn’t even know what her question was. How did he know that she was crazy because she happened to be unattractive? All he has to do was just listen and say, “I can’t help you.” How hard was that?
People may say “Your looks describe you. People actually act like what they look like, or someone can tell a lot about others based on their looks.” This is all wrong because if someone is dressed like professional, it doesn’t mean he or she is threatening or innocent.
We should not assume well-dressed or attractive people are innocent. Most people won’t admit that they have judged people by their appearance but we have all done it. I think these are very important issues for us to talk about, and say something every time we see someone being treated unfairly based on how they look. It is not easy to stop society from thinking of a beauty. However, we can teach them it is very bad to judge people by their appearance. We need to educate ourselves, perhaps by educating ourselves with knowledge and awareness of why we discriminate against the unattractive. We should keep in mind that no one is better than the other person. Everyone should be treated the same. Personal appearance should not affect the way we treat people.