Racism Post One

The Race Card

Lets take a moment to look at racism. I know what you are thinking, that this is going to be offensive. Or maybe you are wondering why I would write about racism, everyone knows what racism is. Right?

What comes to mind when you think of racism? Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, Hitler? That is the problem, why is racism limited to these huge scale events. Why is it limited to the holocaust and slavery? Probably because they were the most recent, but I think that sometimes people love to run their mouth about the two. Its just another thing to blame, another thing people can hold on to just to make themselves feel good, because they have experienced real pain, the kind nobody else has. That's just another way of setting people apart, racism. And I don't mean judging people because of race by setting them apart. Like I often do I am looking at racism from the other side of the coin. The way that it can be used to inflate egos and the way it can be used to set us apart because we know pain, and he has never suffered like we have.

I'm going to be looking at this in three ways, firstly, slavery in comparison to the holocaust. And after that I will look at why those are such popular perspectives on racism. Finally I will talk about how racism is not confined to one versus the other, but how races have judged each other for all of time.

First Section The Holocaust and The South

Alright, why is it that on television or in everyday life you hear about racism between whites and blacks. You see on the news about hate crimes between the two, and another special about the heroes that rescued slaves and the evil southerners who made slaves work. Here is my question, in all this talk about racism why on earth is it confined only to slavery and blacks and whites. I won't deny that blacks have been persecuted, beaten, judged, enslaved and even sometimes killed because of race. But what about Jewish people? Did it even cross your mind that Jewish people have had slavery, a holocaust, and have been driven out of their rightful homeland because of crusades and holy wars. Jewish children would have to watch their parents gunned down at their homes doorsteps, and then be dragged off to concentration camps. They would have to live in ghettos or even in hiding just hoping that someone would come to save them. Egypt enslaved them and made them work in bible times. Their homeland has been in conflict for almost all of recorded history! But we never hear about big bad Nazi who came and killed a Jewish person. We hear about big bad farmer who was raised to have a slave work his farm, isn't that farmer just the devil!

I'm sure much of it is because slavery happened in America, and the holocaust happened in Europe. However, isn't it time that people quit pulling the race card? You see it every day, on television and in real life. Its simply a matter of fill in the blank, "Is it because I'm a ____?" I'll give you an example really quick, when I write this post many people will call me a racist, but the fact that every white American in the movie Miracle at St. Anna is a terrible racist is just historical. Because after all, there couldn't be a white man who isn't a complete racist, that wouldn't make sense? Why is it that modern day society is blinded by the past and can't see whats happening now?

I won't deny the fact that America has treated blacks very poorly in its day. But I do not tolerate racism towards whites just because of slavery. Lets me tell you something, when I moved to Pennsylvania I left Georgia, and I had many African American friends there, but the second people heard I was from Georgia I was branded a redneck racist scumbag who wasn't worthy of being in the great north. African American kids didn't even acknowledge my existence. What did I do to them? I never owned a slave, I never committed a hate crime. But I'm from redneck infested Georgia so I am bad. I'm going to let you in on something, Georgia isn't full of rednecks. I met more rednecks in PA then I even thought existed. Georgia had some racism, but I noticed as much if not more in PA, and Ive noticed racism in Oregon as well. But the south is the cesspool of it all, the south is automatically bad right? Wrong.

Second Section: Racial Ignorance, the most common form of racism.

I can't even count how many times in my middle school someone would hear the word Negro in to kill a mockingbird, and they would laugh. Or how they would be eating mnm's and see a dark one and say "Mnm dark, that's racist ha ha ha." This is just ridiculous. It disgusts me, yes DISGUSTS ME that people are so ignorant. Without ignorance, the south would be recognised as a good place, racism would be cut in half. Mnm dark wouldn't even cross someones mind as being racist, even in jest.

The fact is that racism is mostly made up of ignorance. Some people truly hate blacks, but others hear about slavery, the holocaust, it goes in one ear and the remainder of their intelligence jumps out the other. People joke about racism, that is a lot of the ignorance there. People look at African Americans, they see a different culture and they either worship it or hate it. Because they don't think about equality, its one extreme or the other.

Lets look at the worship part, people see African American styles and boom, all the kids are wearing them. People see a black person in a gang and here comes a new style. People see the music they listen to and bam! Hello new favorite style of music. There is a line between being intrigued and interested in different cultures, but intrigued and interested is a lot different the infested into it. People become obsessed.

Here is the other side, hate, or racism. Which is pretty simple, people dislike the other culture because it intimidates them. That is it.

Section Three: Greed

You all remember greed, if you read my blog that is. People use racism to their own personal gain IE the "Race Card." You remember the "Is it because I'm ___?" That is it, the race card, you want someone to do something and that's their reasoning. their race. Pretty simple, I have pretty much ranted enough on the subject in this post, I am sure that you understand my point.

I try to avoid general statements, but before I go to post the second and third installments of this little miniseries I want to inform you all that I know there are good and bad people everywhere in the world, no matter the color of their skin. I am simply combating racial ignorance. Nothing else.