Racism is almost always a sensitive subject when there are 'white' people involved. To me it seems that discrimination itself is what causes this sensitivity. I never saw the difference between myself and someone with a different skin complexion until other people began to point it out. To this day I still do not see the difference, save for hereditary levels of melanin and facial features, yet I've been called a white racist bitch in the past. Is that not stereotyping in which I was placed under a malicious category because of my own European descent?
The Caucasian people do, indeed, have a history of bigotry and hateful acts towards other ethnicities. In fact, a few months ago I became physically ill after discovering a website devoted to a community of people who are convinced that the other 'races' are warring against the white race. At first I thought it was a joke, a forum created to poke fun at people who really are like that. I kept scrolling through all the different parts of the website, becoming more and more sickened. They hailed Hitler, saying his ideas about extinguishing certain people were genius. It was a website so full of hate that it gave me a headache.
Yes, these people are white supremacist bigots, but that does not mean that I am, too. People should not assume that I am ignorant and narrow-minded because I have a sort of peachy-pink skin tone. And I am not saying that I am perfect and that I never discriminate or anything like that. I wish that stereotyping was not a part of daily life, but it seems to have burrowed its way into the media, into our society, like a nasty virus spreading from one person to the next. I think everyone has that little monster in the back of their mind, that tiny whisper.
Personally, I think hatred has become a universal emotion. I do not know a single person who does not hate someone else. This hatred is easily morphed into racism, sexism, and other prejudices. These prejudices lead to misunderstandings and ignorance, which only leads to even more unnecessary hatred. On the website mentioned above I read a story in the 'Youth' section in which the kid felt he was being racially discriminated against because the 'negro' librarian told him to get off the computer so that someone else could go on. Because of his original mindset where he believed that other races are purposefully being discriminatory and making the white race into a minority, he automatically believed that the librarian was racist against him. He said later on in the story that he never went back to that library because he was so disgusted.
But like I said, not all 'white' people are like that. It's like two sides of a hate fest: on one side is the white supremacists, and on the other side is everyone who has been discriminated against or treated badly because they have a different pigment to their skin. In the middle is all the people who really just wish everyone would stop caring so much about religion, 'race', ethnicity, nationality, and all the other things that, in the end, don't actually matter.
So I often find myself not only angered with racist bigots who live in small worlds, but also angered by those that take the bait, that accept the challenge, that participate in the fight instead of just shaking their heads and walking away. It is why I believe that hate is universal. It is not just a one sided ordeal. There are many sides to every conflict, and everyone must take responsibility for anything they say or do. Even I must take responsibility sometimes for my mistakes because even mistakes may sometimes cause horrible things to happen.
Maybe if everyone took responsibility for their actions, even the fundamentalist basket cases that use God to justify murdering 'witches' or the white nationalists that use their ethnicity to justify treating all other races with utmost disrespect, there would not be quite so much hate.
Sometimes even that seems like too much of a farfetched idea.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Revolutionary
I was having a somewhat humorous conversation with my mother about the different levels of discrimination between different ethnicities and we began brainstorming exactly what it would take to draw the peoples of the world together. Perhaps some kind of terrible natural occurrence, like a massive earthquake that struck multiple parts of the world or a meteor shower. Then again, though, people would still group together and war over what resources are left, so that kind of thing might actually have the opposite effect in the end.
So what if all the great leaders of the world tried spreading equality in their countries and in others by speaking to large crowds and passing laws about discrimination and segregation and eliminating them? Then, of course, the media would get in the way. The media has a habit of doing just that, by going against whatever peaceful things the leaders are saying by dragging up the dirty details and making everyone look bad and shining a negative light on everything.
After discussing various other ways, my mother and I finally decided on a science fiction way of looking at it, one that we had a lot of fun with. What if aliens came to Earth? Hostile aliens that only wanted our resources or perhaps to eat us for dinner? Then the world's populations would surely come together to fight off their common enemy. Then there would be no one who cares about the differences between dark skin and light skin, only a unanimous hatred against the green-skinned folks that have come to ravage the planet. We would call them Vertos. We would all fight against them, these aliens, until they would finally leave.
But then, once the Vertos had left, would humanity continue to treat all peoples with equality? One for all and all for one? Or would mankind revert to the old way of thinking, in which certain peoples are less than others because of their culture or ethnicity? My mother and I reasoned that it would be a fifty-fifty thing. Some people would find absolute joy in the equality that they can share with others; some people would find their own brand of joy in tormenting others. Such is the way of life.
It made me start thinking, though. How could we build equality without an alien attack? How could we spread tolerance and peace without having to go by the saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? I began to imagine a great revolutionary, one like Gandhi, who stands up in front of a crowd and bellows, "I will respect you, but I demand your respect in return!"
Scratch that. Rewind it. Erase, erase.
"I will respect you no matter what, even if you do not respect me!"
There we go. The crowd is screaming now, bright grins on their faces as they holler his or her name. It is a chant, a prayer, calling up to the heavens to protect this man or woman who has dared to be great.
"I will be the first to be tolerant! I will be the first to lay down my weaknesses and honesty at your feet and let you spit upon my own!"
The crowd is wild beyond imagining. He or she is a hero, a wonderful madman who has brought hope to the eyes of little dirty children and their hardworking parents. He or she is the answer to late night wishes upon twinkling stars and fairy godmothers. He or she is the next Martin Luther King, Jr., the next Abraham Lincoln, the next Mother Teresa, and he or she has come to deliver this world from hatred and racism.
Well, that is, if there isn't someone in the crowd with a gun ready to shoot him down. Humanity has an odd habit of extinguishing good things like that.
So what if all the great leaders of the world tried spreading equality in their countries and in others by speaking to large crowds and passing laws about discrimination and segregation and eliminating them? Then, of course, the media would get in the way. The media has a habit of doing just that, by going against whatever peaceful things the leaders are saying by dragging up the dirty details and making everyone look bad and shining a negative light on everything.
After discussing various other ways, my mother and I finally decided on a science fiction way of looking at it, one that we had a lot of fun with. What if aliens came to Earth? Hostile aliens that only wanted our resources or perhaps to eat us for dinner? Then the world's populations would surely come together to fight off their common enemy. Then there would be no one who cares about the differences between dark skin and light skin, only a unanimous hatred against the green-skinned folks that have come to ravage the planet. We would call them Vertos. We would all fight against them, these aliens, until they would finally leave.
But then, once the Vertos had left, would humanity continue to treat all peoples with equality? One for all and all for one? Or would mankind revert to the old way of thinking, in which certain peoples are less than others because of their culture or ethnicity? My mother and I reasoned that it would be a fifty-fifty thing. Some people would find absolute joy in the equality that they can share with others; some people would find their own brand of joy in tormenting others. Such is the way of life.
It made me start thinking, though. How could we build equality without an alien attack? How could we spread tolerance and peace without having to go by the saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? I began to imagine a great revolutionary, one like Gandhi, who stands up in front of a crowd and bellows, "I will respect you, but I demand your respect in return!"
Scratch that. Rewind it. Erase, erase.
"I will respect you no matter what, even if you do not respect me!"
There we go. The crowd is screaming now, bright grins on their faces as they holler his or her name. It is a chant, a prayer, calling up to the heavens to protect this man or woman who has dared to be great.
"I will be the first to be tolerant! I will be the first to lay down my weaknesses and honesty at your feet and let you spit upon my own!"
The crowd is wild beyond imagining. He or she is a hero, a wonderful madman who has brought hope to the eyes of little dirty children and their hardworking parents. He or she is the answer to late night wishes upon twinkling stars and fairy godmothers. He or she is the next Martin Luther King, Jr., the next Abraham Lincoln, the next Mother Teresa, and he or she has come to deliver this world from hatred and racism.
Well, that is, if there isn't someone in the crowd with a gun ready to shoot him down. Humanity has an odd habit of extinguishing good things like that.
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