With all the recent news of Trayvon, racial profiling, and the upcoming elections I thought this would be a good time to write about what exactly is racism? When we talk or ask someone if they are a racist, they will inevitably say "no!". My thoughts on this though says yes! We all are in some way or another racist, let me explain and then I hope the reader will look at their own selves and honestly do an evaluation.
Taking a verse from Janet Jackson's song, "A world sick with racism; get well". When we look at our circle of friends what do we see? Are most of the people in our circle of friends like us, brown and brown, white and white, black and black? Do we have a variety of nationalities in our circle? Of our family members, do we see variety or is everyone pretty much alike? When we go to gatherings of people do we tend to migrate to those who have our skin color? When we are at school/college do we tend to stick to "our own people"? Some of you may be thinking "well that's natural", but is it? When you see a group of babies interacting do they migrate to color of skin, no they don't, it is not until they are taught by examples of the adults in their lives do this kind of distinctions occur. Racism is a learned behavior and just as we learn to be racist we can also teach ourselves to unlearn it.
Society perpetuates these behaviors and we blindly follow. Our subconscious is diseased and terminally ill with the effects of long held "norms" but we can all be healed of this sickness by stepping out of our comfort zones. Our exterior packaging me be different, however we all share the same interior makeup, medicine does blood typing to do transplants, not race because a healthy heart, lung, or liver, as long as it's healthy and the "internal" blood is a match it will suffice. We as a "human family" need to remind ourselves of this fact, daily if not every minute of the day until the color line fades from our eyes and we can pick our friends and lovers based on who they are on the inside. We are a society of "judgementors", we love to size people up by what we see on the exterior, we are quick to make judgements, all the while others are judging us and we call fowl!
Many of us who complain about racism and its unfairness are also guilty of perpetuating it. We make statements that are definitely bias, we use phases to display our "racial pride" and while having pride in oneself is not racist per se, it becomes racist behavior when we make distinctions based on race. As parents we have the power to end racism for our children by setting a good example, watch what we say, choose our friends by who they are on the inside, expose our children to other cultures and take care to expose ourselves to diverse cultures ourselves so when our children go out into society they are not weakened by this sickness of racism. Pay close attention to the words we use because what we say and do has a lasting effect on what we teach our children.
With the world getting smaller due to technology and travel we should be getting further and further away from the racist behaviors of the past but instead of getting away from it we appear to be paralyzed and getting sicker, we remain stuck in our comfort zones and when one of us steps outside what we feel is our normal we criticise them for the person they chose to love, the friends they have, the way they speak or act. The only barrier between us should be the language barrier and even that can be overcome. Take the leap of faith, learn to see all our brothers and sisters as part of our human family.
As Janet Jackson said; "get well".
