By Ivonne Mosquera
For someone from my background, the first thing that comes to mind when considering the origin of racism, is a picture of a ruthless landowner brutally punishing his slaves two centuries ago. It may be a comfort for modern people to ascribe race problems to another, earlier time, but perhaps we are really brushing off the real problem behind racism: does each of us have a bit of racism within?
Perhaps if we thought about humanity like an endangered species, and then considered ways of protecting that species, the abolishment of "difference", "threat", we have a chance to get in front of racism.
Racism is not a color illness, a political one, nor a religious one; it is sadly a mental sickness. The Ku Klux Klan was (or is?) more than a right-wing extreme movement. They were convinced about "white supremacy", because in their minds, they were unprepared to accept the results of the Civil War, which decided the question of "man by man exploitation." The KKK spilt much blood, but for what purpose and to what end? The Black Panther Party, born as a "self-defense" movement, developed the same racist feeling in the opposite way.
Europe suffered the ravages of the Nazi absolutist regime, spurring a reluctant United Kingdom and America to oppose it because its outrageous racist ideology and deeds. All that effort, however, resulted in an equally horrible communist regime at the end of WWII throughout Eastern Europe. One by one, these oppressive states began to fall, ending in the dissolution of the USSR in 1990. What was the communist regime of the USSR about? Intolerance of difference, not focused on the issue of skin color, but about ideas. Nazis propounded the myth of the Aryan "superman," while the Communists showed a sort of evolved racism of propaganda. Both houses of cards ended up crashing in on themselves.
The United States knows racism well, having cast its net over a succession of "others," apart from the horrible treatment of the stolen and enslaved Africans: the myths about Chinese survival, the disdain of Irishmen, the distrust about the "Italian mafia", and most recently the generalized hate of Muslim people in the wake of the WTC disaster.
This is our reality, and is not going to change until we understand the problem is in our minds, racism is a deep fear of the other, a fear which make us weak.
Isaiah Gay-Beal
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this article. I really think that if racism was looked at as an endangered species, that people would work harder to save a species thats in need of saving.
Katiria Garcia
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent article because you expose the origin of racism, but you also illustrate some different ways that Americans use to show their racism, such as making other cultures look worse of Americans'. By analyzing this article, makes me think of how in the United States the society controls our minds in a way that we finish judging people by their race. Is this society trying to make people to confront each other? So, this society can keep White Supremacy.
Elona Perllaku
ReplyDeleteThis article is very interesting to read. It informs you about how racism actually started and how it doesn't only exist in America. It show that racism comes in all shapes and sizes and it isn't just about skin color.
Fred Dukes
ReplyDeleteI thought that this article was very interesting and I really enjoyed reading it. I like the fact that it highlighted not only the racism in America but racism in Europe as well. This article just goes to show how big racism is.
www.BigotsWithBadges.com
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