Hypocrite?
Per Jana:
Mr. Dalton is a professed philanthropist toward blacks and owns real estate that black families live in on the South Side. With the conditions and practices of the real estate, wouldn't Mr. Dalton be considered a hypocrite?
English 169, Lecture 1
With Prof. Schaub, Spring 2007
Teaching Assistant: Emily S. Yu
6 comments:
He is clearly a hypocrite. As the majority stockholder of The South Side Real Estate Company, he exploits black tenants by charging them a higher price than white for comparable living quarters. He then claims to be a supporter of Blacks by way of philanthropy. This is all very clearly laid out during the trial when Mr. Dalton is put on the stand.
I don't know I would call him a hypocrite, but Mr. Dalton is definately ignorant to how his actions really affect the community. He practices his business the way he is expected to without giving a second thought to how it affects his tennants. It truly seems he has no realization of how his practices exploit the black community, showing his ignorance. Mr. Dalton really believes that his donations and the ping pong tables make a great difference where it is really needed and because of this he never takes a deeper look into the situation. Unfortunately because of his daughter's murder, he probably will never look that closely.
I wouldn't exactly call Mr. Dalton a hypocrite. A hypocrite would be a business man who charges black an exuberant amount for rent and then does nothing, but considers himself a supporter of the black society. Mr. Dalton is simply following the standards of business during the time, and doing what he can to pay back. Sure he probably could donate something better than ping-pong tables, but at least he's giving at all.
I would call him a hypocrite, although he thinks he is actually doing good in society. He just doesn't question himself or the system he is a part of, so he instead works with the system to improve conditions. It would obviously be better to revamp the system, and by not working to do so does make him, at least somewhat, a hypocrite.
That's an interesting question. Yes he does contradict the morals that he says he stands for, but who hasn't done that at some point? Even in the Bible, Jesus picked an apple on Sunday. (... I never really thought of the ironic symbolism in that before...) Is it even ideal to always hold to an ideal no matter what? I, being a situationalist rather than a legalist, would say no.
His actions seem hypocritical from the outside, but Mr. Dalton himself doesn't realize that his actions are counteracting eachother. By charging blacks more than white for similair quarters, he's reinforcing the racism inherent in the real estate system of the time, while his philanthropy is beneficial to blacks in at least some way. Dalton doesn't realize this, leading to this hypocrisy.
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