Racism is No Laughing Matter
Embracing diversity within our lives.
Babies are born as objective beings. They have no preconceived notions to sway them and no past experiences to compare situations to. All the knowledge, love, and evil they will posses as adults will be ingrained by outer stimuli like parents, friends, television, school, world events, and so on. Admittedly, some of their knowledge will come from instinct; after all we’re only animals. Nevertheless, a person’s beliefs are a culmination of observations they’ve gathered since birth.
I’d always known that I was a little different from my classmates. My dad was white and my mom was from Taiwan. However, I didn’t see how the world defined me. That is why, as a little sixth-grader, I was shocked by the categorized world that was lying ahead of me. I could only guess as to why labels and strange words were attributed to everything from people to a style of music. I understood that race was a way to distinguish people of different genetic traits, but I didn’t know why it had so much influence on how people regarded each other.
With all of the racist jokes that nobody means and the subtle segregation, it adds up to a young generation of ignorance. And that mindless generation is mine. And I’m not proud of it. That’s not to say that in the grand scheme of things we haven’t made progress. It means that we still have a long way to go.
Many people are blind followers of “humorous racism.” But these harmless jokes are not harmless. They’ve poisoned me and you and every other person in this school. What shook me awake from this trance were some wise words from my Chinese teacher, Dr. Zhao. “When I came to America I was so confused. White is the color of paper, yellow is the color of a banana, and black is the color of a chalkboard, but in America they mean more. But why do they mean more? They’re just colors!” said Zhao.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Race doesn’t matter, yet cracking jokes about it doesn’t help that notion. That is why I’m sharing my story and calling out to you. I’m not asking you to change all of your habits, just remember: what you hear isn’t always true, so don’t let the unfeeling machine of our society cloud your judgments of others or yourself.
Jack Yanoshik • Nov 28, 2015 at 8:05 pm
While I agree with you that stereotypes are a generally negative part of our society it is something that is nearly impossible to eliminate. We as humans subconsciously form biases towards any entity we come into contact with its in our nature. And its not something that is exclusive to our society or generation. It has always existed throughout human history. Additionally I hardly think that racial jokes are such a blight on our school ,or at least not to the extent you made it out to be. In my experience with racial jokes they are often lighthearted and are made more for the purposes of entertainment rather than outright contempt. In fact I feel that this is a much better alternative to harrasment, slurs, and violence. It only really becomes an issue when it is used for spite or somebody takes offense to it then it becomes full blown racism. But as long as both parties have a mutual understanding of the lack of seriousness in these racial jokes as I have generally seen in our school, I see no real issue. Jokes can even be used as a way to bring people together because as we all know comedy is an important aspect of social encounters and can often be an important catalyst in creating freindships. Essentialy what Im saying is that racial jokes are less of an issue than you are making them out to be and we should be focusing on racial issues that are afflicting our country like violence, hate crimes, inequaity, and legitmate hate between race instead of harmless humor.
Bruce Wennerholm • Nov 21, 2015 at 7:02 am
Racism is indeed ignorance, and usualy begins from afar. it continues as people make passing judgemens on eachothers
dress, mannerisms, physical characteristics, etc…. However, as different races intewantract on a deeper level, the truh is revealed as layers of mistrust are peeled back: WE ARE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME INSIDE !! We all crave affection, have hopes and dreams, and we love to compare,and contrast these dreams with others… what once was mistrust now becomes
fascination as we inquire of eachothers origins and thought processes…
America is a grand melting pot, where differences and blending are allowed concurrently. and hopefully everyone will
elevate themselves even beyond tolerance and respect to genuine LOVE for eachother as originally intended by our common
Creator…….