Guess what my definition for racism is? Utter stupidity.
Can you think of anything stupider? How can it be the cause of so many conflicts, hardships, heartaches and deaths? How can it be the basis of one’s judgement, one’s sense of superiority, of hatred or discrimination? How can it the basis of somebody’s character?
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Instead of race, I prefer the word “culture”. It seems true that “race” separates us and defines us, but only because we perceive it and render it so. Certain races reside in certain geographical regions, separated by location, language, history and individual development–but that’s not race. That’s culture.
And somehow that makes us different. It does. But we perceive difference in a way that we become separated from each other. And this separation, as mentioned in my previous post, is an illusion.
Sure, blame in on colonialism or the human ego…but we are all responsible for this. And sometimes I just feel like…why does racism even exist? Or should I say, why do we allow it to exist?
I’m searching for a raceless place. I’m searching for a place, some alternative universe, where we’re just simply–ourselves–people. I’m searching for humanity.
Why is everything so complicated? Why is everything so fucked up? (Again, I apologize for swearing…maybe I shouldn’t, since sometimes, when used appropriately–swearing is merely a form of expression, an encapsulation of some form of meaning…)
Why do we think ourselves better or less than someone else, because of our skin colour? Of the size of our eyes, our noses, our lips? Our accents?
Seriously, skin colour? If you really think about it, it’s goddamn unbelievable that RACISM EVEN EXISTS.
But it does, and sometimes it’s more than a conscious decision or attitude. It’s so deeply rooted inside of our culture, our mental dispositions that it’s almost impossible to eradicate.
I think we are making progress, though. I mean, things like this don’t change overnight.
Take Canada, for example–where I’m from. We say we are multicultural but we are not. We say so just to be different from the States, but honestly it’s just some political bullshit that politicians made up for the sake of an argument. Racism gets shoved under the table. It exists. It’s everywhere. In schools, restaurants, work places, homes, everywhere. We are all segregated by race, more or less. We organize ourselves in accordance to our language, and we form our little communities. I’m speaking as an minority, of course. And then there’s the differentiation between mainstream white society and minority society…and everything gets complicated, identities get fractured, reformed and challenged, people treat each other differently according to geography, race, class, ethnicity, blah blah blah…
But I guess, at least it is “multicultural” in the sense that…different “races” (a term I loathe, because it’s an idiotic notion anyway) come together to live in one country, on the same soil. North America is definitely making progress in that regard. And I understand, of course, and as I said before, these things take time.
I mean, at least we have higher racial/multicultural tolerance. We’re beginning to accept each other, despite the friction, the challenges, the segregations. We are making progress. Hopefully for the better. Children from different continents play together, regardless of skin colour. In fact, the notion of race doesn’t exist in their minds, not yet. It’s until they become aware of the importance of social integration that they start to notice race. As they grow older, they inherit the notion of race from the matrix of predisposed attitudes that our society perpetuates. And they become raced, or they notice that they are non-raced.
Ah, it makes me frustrated to think about this. Race! When can we be free from it, if ever? This utter, utter stupidity that is race.
Why can’t we just be people together?
Seriously, why can’t we?
