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Rights, Human Rights, and Racial Discrimination


 * Born January 9, 1936, in New York City, Richard Alan Wasserstrom has obtained a multitude of degrees including a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as well as a Juris Doctorate from Stanford University. Outside of being a Professor of Law and Philosophy at several distinguished collegiate institutions, he has also served as a civil rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Tuskegee University. “Rights, Human Rights, and Racial Discrimination” is produced in 1964, during the Civil Rights Era; while the movement’s main objective was to ensure “civil rights” for all citizens of America, some shifted their attention towards firstly demanding human or “natural” right for across the world. This discussion of human rights in the political and philosophical arenas had been provoked due to recent events in history, such as the terrifying results of World War II and increasing knowledge of injustices within the U.S. and Africa; each of which involved the denial of humanity and natural rights. Within the text, Wasserstrom discusses the wrongness of objectifying and dehumanizing Black people, as well as its origins that stem from racist viewpoints that aim to deny Blacks of their rights. He argues that implementing a system of human rights is the only way to rid the nation of racial discrimination.