I've stated it before and I'm stating it again: RACISM STILL EXISTS. Have we made progress? Of course, but not enough. This is evident is the protests against
President Obama the government. It's sad that people can walk around with degrading signs of the current President and they are grouped as simply "a few crazy people." Huh? If I recall correctly, when Bush was in office anything said against him was wrong and people were seen as unpatriotic and/or anti-United States. What's the difference now? Why aren't certain people, *cough*Republicans/Conservatives/some Independents*cough*, saying how disrespectful it is now?
.........Oh I know because these people are merely expressing their opposing viewpoints, right? WRONG. Most of these people are racist. You know it, I know, and I'm sure they know it. Just call it what it is because this whole "they just disagree with his political viewpoints" is nonsense. They see an intelligent black man and it scares them because it's new and it's different. Privileged people don't have a problem when another privileged person is in charge and is changing things, but once a person from the minority group takes control and begins to change things, there's a problem. We need to address it instead of trying to downplay it. I'm not saying that every opposing viewpoint stems from racism becasue I don't agree with President Obama all of the time either, but much of it is. As long as we keep pushing it to the side and sweeping it under the rug nothing will ever get solved, period.
Moving on, outside of government, we need to start actually listening to each other, especially when it comes to racial issues. In my diversity class for psychology, we watched a documentary about a small group of diverse people (5 people of color and 4 whites) coming together and speaking their truths. The Latino and one of the White men got into a heated discussion; the Latino man stopped and asked the White man if he(the White man) could repeat what he(the Latino man) just said, the White man couldn't do it because he wasn't listening, he was just hearing. We are so consumed with our own thoughts and getting our own points across that we miss out on the importance of what another person is saying to us. People of color have been trying to explain the hurt and the pain of living in a world of oppression for years, but too many white people aren't listening, they hear us, but they're not listening to meaning of our words. And when they hear us, they want to flip it, push it right back on us, and then try to explain to
us why
we feel a certain way. How does that help anything? A Black woman--
from the documentary--discussed the importance of simply sitting with someone and letting them experience their emotions and feeling it with them because at the end of the day we don't need you to explain why we're feeling a certain way, we know why...YOU DON'T. Try living outside of yourself for a minute and think about how we must feel when we try to state our truth and all you can tell us is to "stop complaining" or try to come up with some erroneous explanation as to how it's our fault we get treated this way. PAUSE. It is 2009 and we are still trying to get our point across, obviously we have some serious issues that aren't our fault.
Will we ever live in a world free of racism? Not as long as people continue to close their eyes to blatant acts of it. Not as long as people continue to say nothing. Not as long as we remain entangled in our
own selfish thoughts and feelings. If we can begin to listen to the true meaning and emotions behind words, then there's a chance. If we can learn to stand up to ignorance, then there's a chance. If we can finally understand that at the end of the day we are all human beings and deserve respect for that simple fact, then maybe. But right now, is seems like too many people are enjoying their blissful ignorance for anything to really change in a significant manner.
Racism is still a big deal. It's a reality and we have to do something about it.
- Jerz
