Ugh, fellow Americans, can we please take our heads out of our asses now?
Removing a flag from the shelves of a corporate conglomerate will not erase racism. It will not stop people from killing each other. It will not stop hate.
It might, however, encourage the idea that your opinions, feelings, thoughts and words are only protected as long as the majority of society thinks they are appropriate. It might allow us to continue avoiding this responsibility we have to treat each other with respect and tolerance and to teach our children to do the same. It might relay to future generations that they can blame something like a piece of fabric on their fucked-up morals and actions.
For the record, I'm a white, middle-class Midwesterner who has always lived in a land of white. I've seen and interacted with very few people of other nationalities and races. If that takes away all my credibility and you no longer think I have anything intelligent to say, then stop reading. I still grew up with forms of discrimination and hate. I still see it today. As a mother, this makes me terrified.
I think Dylan Roof was taught to hate. I think he was raised in a society and community that viewed people as social castes to be stepped on in order to make themselves appear better. I think he was taught that problems are solved with anger and violence and that different opinions are bad.
It might sound like I'm blaming his parents, and in truth, I partly am. But his parents and community weren't the only teachers. As a society we preach equality and anti-discrimination, but in entertainment blacks represent only 10 percent of lead characters in movies and sat in 12 percent of director’s chairs in 2011. Not only that, but these films are given their own "genre." Ever heard the term Hood Film? The fact that the term exists says something.
How many conversations have been had about crime and violence and the direct relation to what we deem as ethnic races? I'd like to say minorities, but I find that term severely outdated, particularly since Caucasian is quickly becoming the less common race. When you think of the term "ghetto", what is the first image that comes to your mind?
It's not just blacks that face this either. Here in America, if we're equal about anything, it's fairness in our stereotypes. We segregate ourselves. We always have and we find this to be the norm. We've always had a standard of conformity, even in the days of the first colonies, and we've failed to evolve and adapt beyond it.
Which begs the question: which came first? The stereotype or the Hood film?
Then there's Rachel Dolezal. Now, in full disclosure, I didn't follow this story very well. From what I understand, she's a white woman posing as a black woman who had a job as head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, a civil rights organization for ethnic minorities. The verdict is still out on what her actual race is, not that it really matters.
WHOA. WAIT. Did I just write that?
Her RACE doesn't MATTER?!
Yes. It doesn't matter. I don't care what race she actually is or what race she identifies with. Can she do the job she earned? Can she do it well and help the organization succeed in it's mission to "ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race?" If so, then awesome. End of story.
Hear that media? End of story. As in shut the fuck up about it already. Same goes for the Charleston shooting. Let it go. Let us mourn. You're making it worse.
Banning guns won't stop violence. We'll simply find another way to kill each other. Creating a conformed race where everyone looks the same won't stop discrimination. We'll just find another reason to hate each other.
Am I saying that we should all love each other all the time? No way. There are plenty of people I don't necessarily like. I don't like them because of the way they think, the way they act or the things they say. But it doesn't mean I go out and shoot them. It doesn't mean I try take away their rights and dignity. It means I stay away from them, ignore them and move on with my life. I don't have time to waste on such negative energy when I have much more positive and important things to do. Like teach my children about tolerance.
I don't think racism, discrimination, hate and violence will ever go away. We won't be able to enact a law or ban items from being sold and eradicate it. It's something that's in people. It's in their thoughts and opinions, the same ones that our constitution protects. Lincoln declared slaves free in 1863, 152 years ago. Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, 100 years later. Rodney King was beaten in 1991, 28 years after Dr. King's speech. And here we are today, 2015, full of riots and marches and sadness and gunshots.
The laws won't change us. Time won't change us. Only WE can change us. Only WE can teach out children to love each other, no matter what. Only WE can see past the colors and the life styles and seek tolerance. Only WE can choose words of action over the actions of bullets.
Everybody has a right, but nobody has a responsibility. We hide behind our constitution. We hide behind our rights and refuse to take responsibility.
We can change that, you know. We have the power and the intelligence to make it better. We have the courage and bravery to improve our country. We can learn from this, if we choose to.
We can choose to use our rights in a responsible manner. We can choose to stop hating each other. We can choose to stop killing each other. We can choose to stop tolerating it and accepting it and allowing it to continue happening.
And we can choose to start today.
No comments:
Post a Comment