Okay, let's begin.
Getting the itch to write anything
sometimes is difficult, especially in my busy, no-time like the
present life, where getting things done yesterday is the norm. But
the following writing is something that I'm seeking to write because
it seems to creep up in conversation and rear its ugly head from time
to time, even amongst the closest people in my life – friends,
family, people I trust, coworkers, etc.
Have you ever given thought to the idea
of “acceptable” racism around you? I mean, seriously. Think
about what I'm talking about. In college, this was something that we
as resident advisers attempted to slow the pace of and even
eliminate, but it never seemed to work, because the world around us
was just too caught up in the “realities” of life not to get
caught up in the life we all hope for. For those of us lucky enough
to go to college and experience the chance to eliminate such
“acceptable” racism, the unfortunate part of this idea is that
eventually, well, for lack of a better term, we “grow up.” The
habits for calling it for what it is go away because we ourselves
awaken to the “reality” of life, or at least some do. For some
of us, we carry the noble ability to call it out when we see it into
our everyday lives, in the hopes that someday we'll help erase it
from the world around us.
Ah, to dream...
But what “it” am I referring to?
Well, for those of you who may not have experienced the university
push to eliminate such “acceptable” racism, let me give some
examples. I'm sure everybody and anybody will know what I'm
referring to.
For example, everybody has that Uncle
who we all love. He's worked on the line for 30 years at a car
plant, starting when the mix of whites to blacks was 90% to 10%.
He's the one, who now is looking at retirement, is willing to say
that “life on the line isn't the same as it used to be.” He's
the one who says, “well now that all the black people are coming on
board, it isn't the same.” He may even use a more colorful word as
an adjective to describe those black people, but nonetheless, without
being overtly racist, he is being racist enough that you know what
he's trying to say. But, he's your favorite Uncle. You chalk such a
statement up to the fact that he has thirty years of experience, and
you really don't want to argue with him. You figure he's just of an
older generation, and that's his mindset – no sense arguing with
him because after all, you can't “change the spots on a leopard,”
right?
Or a better one for you, and the truth
behind the reason I write such a blog. Somebody close to you decides
to blame the ills of the economy, perhaps the personal ills that he
or she is experiencing on a particular sect of our society. Partly
to blame are the politicians in Washington whose oldest political
game in the book is to say “the world is this worse off because of
this particular group of people. Blame them!” And so, without
knowing it, suddenly a person close to you falls on hard times, and
listens to such radical hate-filled speech and before you know it, is
spewing the same hate-filled speech out for all to hear. “America
has lost its values because more than half this country is filled
with minorities now.” Such a statement while seemingly an opinion,
is a racist-filled statement of hate. To blame a particular group of
people for the ills of the society as a whole, instead of choosing to
accept any part of the responsibility, or truly throw the
responsibility where it lies. It's easier to blame the “outsiders”
who do things differently than we do. It's easier to say “they're
the reason why we don't live the way we 'used to.'” When we have
somebody, a scapegoat, to place the blame on, it's easier to accept
that this reality of which we live may not be permanent, and the only
thing we have to do to get back the “perfect harmony” of the
yesteryear is to eliminate the threat that is there from these
outsiders. I have a feeling that a certain group of people may
object to this take, this thought process, that in many ways, began
as something as innocent as “they don't belong here.” It is a
dangerous line of thinking that can lead to a very tragic ending.
It's already happened once in history on a very large scale, and has
been attempted on a much smaller scale as well.
Other “acceptable” forms of racism
may not be as overt. Working a construction job with a bunch of
buddies as each tells a racist stereotypical joke about the local
Jewish man; the employer who looks at a name on a resume and actually
tosses it in the trash simply because he cannot pronounce it;
referring to a particular group of people as “all doing something.”
For example, “all Arabic people who shop, shop dirty and leave the
store a mess.” At one point or another, you have probably heard
somebody around you say something to that effect. Heck, you very
well may have said something to that effect yourself. And when you
think about the why behind such a statement, it is easy to arrive
back to the same conclusion. You are able to say such a statement
because it is an “acceptable” form of racism to do so.
Okay, so I've pointed out the obvious
that such “acceptable” forms of racism exist, right? I've made
everybody feel horrible about the state of their friendships, and
you're going “why would you say such things Casey?” Well the
answer to that question is simply this: “why are these forms of
'acceptable' racism truly that – acceptable?” Why? Why, in our
society, do we let such forms of racism exist in our lives? Why do
we let such horrible stereotypes that seek to hurt rather than mend
our lives permeate as an acceptable form of practice in those around
us?
Take the situation with the Uncle –
everybody's favorite Uncle. It is not acceptable for a man, such as
he, to talk about how the “black man” is ruining the work
environment he so cherished for thirty years. And you should not be
afraid to call him on it. Yet, for whatever reason – the
unwillingness to start a riff in the family, the fear that he will
have good reasoning to say what he said, or in many cases, simple
laziness – you are not willing to step up and say something about
the inappropriateness of the comment.
The second comment is even worse. As I
alluded to as I brought it up – such thoughts are dangerous. Not
at first, they don't seem that way, but if you let such thoughts of
“these are the people to blame,” permeate your consciousness,
eventually you'll start to think of ways to eliminate them from the
equation, or find some radical who promises a way to do just that.
Think about it – Hurricane Irene struck because our country allowed
the repeal of don't ask don't tell – those gays are to blame for
the loss of life on the East Coast. Oh my, those Arabics, they're
all terrorists after all, and that's why we can't have our simple
freedoms as we wait to board an airplane. Blame them – if they
would all just leave our country, we'd be better off. Sound
familiar?
I've got an even better one, “if
you're going to live in our country, you need to speak our language.”
This particular “acceptable” form of racism truly gets my blood
boiling, because the people who say it truly don't think it all the
way through. I mean, even if you take the passion out of such a
statement, and the opinions on such matters away from the statement –
you arrive at the simple logic of such a statement truly doesn't add
up. Think about it – how long does it take to learn a new
language? If you think of just toddlers, at the height of their
ability to learn from things all around them – it can take at least
3 years to begin to learn the language, and even longer to grasp the
details within. But if you take an adult – somebody who has been
immersed in their native language for years and ask them to fluently
learn another language – how long would that take? 5 years? 10
years? Let's say 5 and be conservative.
Okay – so we have a person, let's say
21 years old. They only know Spanish. They were born in Texas, so
they are an American citizen, but because their family speaks
Spanish, that is what they were raised on, and therefore only speak
Spanish. Now, let's use the racist's idea for a second – the
United States passes a law that says “if you're going to live in
the United States of America you need to speak our official language
of English.” Now the fallacy of such a statement is another matter
indeed as the United States doesn't have an official language. But
let's just say we were able to make such a statement true.
Now Joe, our Spanish-speaking American
citizen, needs to learn how to speak English at the age of 21 and
fluently in order to conduct business inside the United States. By
the logic of the person who has ordered such a concept – Joe should
not be able to go out to restaurants, to stores, hang out at a bar,
talk on the phone, or conduct conversations with his family because
he doesn't know how to speak English. Logically, does that make
sense? Logically, can you truly tell somebody that they need to be
an outcast to society for five years until they can learn to speak
“correctly?”
This example points to the issue I'm
trying to make today. People who make statements like the ones above
do so out of ignorance of the society of which they live. They are
afraid, they don't know how to respond, or in many cases, know what
it will take to change it but choose not to, and rather
unproductively criticize the status quo without providing any
substantive response on how to fix the ills of which they criticize.
They believe something is wrong, but they provide no solution on how
to fix it, and then react negatively to any form of change presented
by somebody else.
It's not just true for racism – this
is a common theme in our society. We live in a land where we can
freely speak out mind on anything we want, as long as it doesn't
threaten or hurt anybody else and impede their rights. But just
because one has the ability to speak their mind, doesn't mean that
they should always do so. Sometimes saying something just for the
sake of saying something creates more of a problem instead of fixing
it. Sometimes, it's just simple bitching, and simple bitching
doesn't solve anything. It may very well announce to the world that
there is a problem here, but what it doesn't do is give solutions on
how to fix that problem.
Take the idea of illegal immigration.
We all recognize that it is a problem, for sure. We all recognize
that people living in our country illegally needs to be dealt with,
but what the general public doesn't think through when they make such
statements as “deport them all” is the complexity of how such a
process would work. You're dealing with people who have sometimes
been in this country for 20 years, who have families established, who
work jobs that our typical Americans wouldn't dream of taking, and by
exercising such a practice as deporting all illegals, we'd be
navigating through a complex host of issues that a person who makes
such a three-word statement with passion, wouldn't even think to
figure out how to handle.
The point of this blog is that I get
frustrated just as anybody else does on the state of things in our
culture. Truthfully I do. But my frustration does not grant me the
free reign to express an ignorant and naïve opinion on a group of
people in this country simply because I think they may or may not be
the reasons for our ills. Frustration is an excuse for nobody. And
even if I do express such an opinion, I should not get more upset
when somebody around me calls me out on it. That's their, and
everybody's job to call racism and hate for what it is. Because if
we don't, if we're so quick to take away the rights of everybody that
we don't like, and nobody is there to stand up for them when it
happens, what will happen when somebody else comes around to take
away your rights because you've pissed them off in some way?
Racism and hate should never be
acceptable, no matter who uses it. Racism and hate are evil, and
they have no purpose in our society because all they do is divide.
Stand up to those around you today and here on out who seek to use
such words to put somebody down, and maybe unknowing to them, begin
something that could wind up as tragedy in the end.
Comments welcomed. Be respectful
please.
