Racism plays an unfortunate role in our culture today. Just in the past year, America has seen events such as the Ferguson riots, controversy over the Washington Redskins franchise name, drunken fraternity brothers singing obscenities on a bus and many more incidents.
It’s time we put an end to an era of racial tension so the nation can move into a new era of cultural prosperity. But to eliminate this terrible disease, we must first locate its source of power.
So who or what should we look towards to blame for the aggressive and closed-minded views we continue to see? Is it learned through the clique-ish “think this way to fit in” attitude we see in grade schools? Does pop culture force it on us? Or is it caused by the emotional baggage passed down from our elders?
I believe these things contribute to the problem, but I don’t believe any of these things are the true root of the problem. We cannot blame any specific organization, group, or individual for the nation’s current racial injustices. The buck stops at each and every one of us.
We must separate stereotypes from reality if we are to ever accept each other for what we truly are — individually unique. Everyone acts independently with their own free will, and with each new decision we make, we have the power to put behind past transgressions and treat each person the way all of us would like to be treated — with a clean slate free from preconceived notions guiding peoples’ perceptions of us.
It can be hard at times to suppress racism with so many social pressures pushing it into our lives, but it becomes easier when you think of it this way — we are all victims of random chance. All of us were uncontrollably born into different homes and experienced different upbringings. We as human beings are profoundly influenced by the people we surround ourselves with, which plays a large role in the shaping of our belief systems.
This isn’t an excuse for a lack of empathy or lack of effort on our part; it’s simply a reality that we all have to embrace. We mustn’t judge others by the way they appear.
Our only true ethical evaluation method is to assess everyone on an individual level by their own actions. Actions like working hard every day to overcome poverty and make a name for themselves or not acting entitled to everything because they wanted for nothing as a child. Those are tangible actions worthy of consideration; not extrapolations based off of stereotypes.
All perceptions are formed by personal experiences, and, when those perceptions are validated by social influences, they turn into stereotypes. Stereotyping used to be beneficial when it was used as a means of survival in primitive times (if a batch of red berries were
poisonous, they would think all red berries were poisonous), but, in an advanced society, we need to realize when stereotyping is holding us back.
I think the real root of our problem lies in our culture no longer being dynamic; it adjusts only to outside pressures, and not internal epiphanies. Instead of adapting and progressing, open-mindedness is suppressed by others who don’t see the same light. In other words, it seems as though people would rather conform and let racism slide rather than taking a stance on it amongst their peers.
I speculate that the stereotypes we as human beings have developed against certain groups of people are conditioning us to define, label and identify entire social classes in each race as corrupt, subsequently closing off all of those people from our lives so we never attempt to get to know any of them on a personal level.
To overcome this, we must step out of our own metaphorical bubbles that we use to standardize the world. We must completely put ourselves out into the great unknown, open our minds to new ideas, and filter out the close-minded, ill-conceived notions. Even a simple racist joke you laugh at from a television show reinforces the presence of that negative way of thinking into your mind, making you more accepting towards racism.
It’s time we all take a firm stance on this issue; stand up to people who perpetuate racist stereotypes and tell them that we will no longer tolerate this injustice. We cannot allow another generation to believe racial stereotyping is OK because they will forever wander through life stuck in their own little bubbles, never truly taking the time to appreciate cultures that are different from their own.
I plead to all of you who read this — kill this plague of stupidity in its tracks so we can embrace our brethren as one race: the human race.
Mark Howser, junior/management
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