I know that this post will be a little controversial at times. Therefore, I would like to apologize to you or anyone whom I might have offended. Racist remarks can be very sensitive and harmful to a certain group of people. In order to limit any conflict between me and you or someone else, I will try to be cautious with my expressions.
In my opinion, a person can be racist to a certain level. Let's make an example of a racist meter. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is non racist and 10 is pure racist. Now, where would you put yourself? In order to understand the definition of racism or racist, we need to look up in a dictionary.
According to an online dictionary database, racism means a belief or doctrine that involves the idea of one's own race is far more better and has the right to rule the others. Moreover, racism also means hatred or intolerance of another race or races (www.dictionary.com).
I am not here to prove that everyone is racist or anything. I am here to provide some knowledge of my own experience of why a person can be racist to a certain meter point. Anyway, just keep in mind about your own racist meter scale for now while you are reading the rest of my blog. We will come back to it.
Now society seems to be very sensitive over racist remarks, especially the minority. Is it fear or just equality rights among races that drive us to be more sensitive over the issues of racism? If you were to ask me the question, I would not answer you at all. You see, racism's iss
ues can be seen in a very different and complex perspectives. It's an entirely different issue for the black American communities and for some other Asian communities too. It's not on my behalf to say something for them because I am not black and I didn't even expose myself to the black communities or even to the KKK. The suppression of the black experience can only be expressed by them as they are exposed to racism in their own community. In other words, you have to understand something when you experience it personally. I was not there and I can't judge them. On the other hand, me as a Chinese, what do I think about the Japanese brutal invasion on my country during WWII? Again, I can't really touch on that issue as my life is seen mostly unaffected. I know that my ancestors would have hated them so much because they suffered and experienced the most violent and unthinkable memories.
Well, my story doesn't end here. At some point in our life, we might have changed our racist meter to a higher scale or a lower scale. I am sure there are reasons that reflect the change in our racist meter. Let me name a few for you: Media, Politics, Money, Colleagues, Your Neighbors, Robberies, Illegal immigrants, Education and even Football fanatics. Of course, education can be seen as something helpful to lower your racist meter but not necessarily true. Maybe a history study about the brutalities of Japanese Invasion during WWII would rather stir up some commotions between Chinese and Japanese learners. Again, I am not saying History is a bad thing. However, learning not to repeat the same old mistakes might be rather worthwhile to study History. Importantly, some historians (observers and writers) can be a little bias at times due to their past experiences over a racial matter. Therefore, you can see how the racist meter kicks in. Anyway, the question here is how are we going to repair the scars or any racial conflicts? To me, it's never an easy task. You probably need a revolutionary change in everyone's mindset. Maybe, great leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King or "Aliens" can make a huge impact on racial issues.
Great leaders will always have more power to provide good influences to the society. Their voices can make a great change and also lead to peaceful resolutions. Well! when I am talking great leaders, I am not talking about Hitler. I am talking about someone who can inspire others to join for a good cause. On the other hand, alien invasion might bring human beings together to fight for our lives, mankind existence and home. I believe communication and cooperation are also vital keys to improve racial tensions or other misunderstandings.
Well! Revolutionary change in everyone's mindset is a very huge thing to begin with. It must be done peacefully and simultaneously at the same time. When it is not done in a synchronized way, racial issues might not be solved in a systematic coordination, and racism might ev
en get very serious and tensional among other racial groups. I will call this, such problem, a racial coordination failure. Coming back to the Japanese brutal invasion, the reason of not putting myself in the shoe my ancestors is that the past is gone. Obviously, I want to have a fresh mindset that is not heavily influenced by my ancestors' brutal experiences with the Japanese invasion. I am not telling you to give up about learning or knowing your grandparents'.
I just believe a newer generation of a society should focus more on integrating ourselves with different types of people.
Heavy influences from the corrupted, violent and unfair issues keep us within the circle of racist problems. Well! We can blame anyone for this and it will continue for the rest of our lives. Maybe, the governments, the religions, the family, the teachers and the list will go on. We will never put a full stop on this racial matter till the day earth dies. However, I do believe we can do something with our own hands to reduce, but not to eliminate, our racist meter scale.
It's easy, in words, to say what we can do something about racism. Let me put it this way,
"to the new future ancestors, if you want your children to live in a world of racist-free earth, be a good non-racist influential leader".
So what is happening now? When one is being seen as a minority or being offended with racist remarks, he or she starts to complain or hate the other group of racist people or racial slurs. Eventually, one is so turned down that he or she becomes a over-reacted to the racist group and starts to be a little racist as well. This is how the racist meter kicks in. With more bad influences from friends, families and societies, things get worse and create a massive problem in racism. It's like a chain reaction among society. Well! not everyone will have this problem if he or she knows how to handle problems properly but when things get too extreme, I am sure noone will be able to withstand it. Sometimes, you don't realize that you are racist in a way, maybe not racist but certainly, some minor racial implications.
THE RACIST METER SCALE CASE STUDIESKuKlaxKlan didn't start off as a harmful group. Well! the early KKK's racist meter would be around just 1. First, it was just whole bunch of pranksters who enjoy riding horses while dressed in white sheets and pillowcase hoods. However, the Klan evolved to a bigger and more powerful clan that involved in multi-state terrorist activities such as frightening and ki
lling emancipated slaves. Why did the group suddenly shoot up all the way to 9 or 10, killing the black American? Perhaps, during that period most members of the KKK society had lots of incentive of not giving up equal rights to other groups due political and economic factors. During that 1870s, most members were supported by the plantation owners and they did not want the human rights to be given to the people who worked in their plantations, especially black slaves. As a result, early Klan did its work through violent acts against the black society to ensure blacks would never get the benefits of equal rights. The racist meter was rather high with 8 to 9. Therefore, racism usually comes with a trigger of something. It can be revenge, economic benefits or just for the sake of "a certain (holy) land".
How did KKK eventually get weak with a reduction in racist meter? With WW2 coming and the idea of KKK was simply more or less like the idea of Hitler, it was then KKK started to lose its ground. More people, from black and white and other communities, were unified to participate in a war to stop Hitler, the so called racist maniac, who had killed many Jews. Indirectly, one can see that the war was a way of bringing people together to stop racist, violent and brutal wars.
It is just my weird thought that It would be less likely we would ever fight to eliminate racism anytime sooner. We would probably continue to eliminate terrorism, corruption, financial collapse, poverty and etc. Will it ever eliminate all that problems? Perhaps, we might need something bigger to stir everyone's mind to unite for a good reason to live lives. For instance, "The Alien Invasion".
There are tons of reasons to think how one's racist meter increases over time. To name a few, your colleague, a Mly, is very lazy at work. You hate him very much because you have to help him with his work. You might get very mad and start to hate other Mly people and often come out with a racist remarks within your friends but not in front of the Mly person.
England football fanatics can over excessively support their own national teams and start cursing other countries with racist remarks. Also, Yeah! If you remember Zidane's case too.
Your teacher hates a certain type of person and overly generalize about the person's race with racist remark. Your teacher even talks about it in front of his/her fellow students. Students also learn from the teacher.
An African government radio station intentionally starts to broadcast something violent and brutal to a certain group of tribe, creating heats of revenge and causing ethnic cleansing.
All in all, what is your meter scale by the way? Are you prepared to make a change to yourself? If you are a racist, it's fine to be one but at least you should learn how to reduce the effects. Don't be influenced! We'll never stop racism if we do not initiate to do something about it and foremost because of "Racial Coordination Failure".
What's next for a different meter scale problem? Sexism(Bisexual & Homosexual), Feminism and etc. Think?
My random thoughtSocieties, living in a very traditional norm, sometimes cannot accept the existence of other minorities, especially gender differences or other religious belief. In any way, we should learn to accept and respect each other differences.
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