In the reading Smells Like Racism by Rita Chaudhry Sethi, she addresses one opinion of racism that did not realize. She explains and gives examples of racism against different races. I have always thought of racism as one sided one group against another, but the fact she questions is why one race is less offensive to target than another. Sethi give the example of the 1993 movie Falling Down and how the audience is tolerant of anti-Asian scenes but imagines how violent the crowd might become if the same was inflicted on a black or Jewish person. I am finding as the more I read for this class the more I will have to examine most of my actions learned from society.
Racism in America is a sensitive issue that I feel is tip-toed around by society. There are a plethora of views and opinions that keep changing and adapting the idea of racism. These views also range on the level of severity from jokes all the way to murder. I think the reason most people shy away from addressing racism is because no one will ever agree 100% that a certain action or situation counts as racism. There will always be someone that will say it was just a joke or racism was not the cause it was … The only way for racism to disappear in America is to tackle it head on. Only when people can openly express their feelings without fearing backlash from the majority or minority will racism start to fade within society.
Matthew Raffel
I think your observations speak to the fact of why a class like American Pluralism is so important! We need to talk openly about these issues, as opposed to being "color-blind" or "gender-blind" and pretending as though they do not impact our society any longer.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with what Matthew is pointing out here. I, too, believe that many people who make racist comments and are accused of it will just say it was a joke or I didn't mean it in a racist way. Tackling racism head on is still a little unclear to me. How exactly would we do this?? I know taking the first step is thinking about it and then taking action would be the second step. I just think there is soo much negative thinking out in the world that racism is just not going to stop fully but instead will just be hidden a lot better.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Matt in that the readings from this class just make me think of my actions each and every day. I can admit to being one of those to make a comment that might have been funny to the group of friends and I at some point but ever since I started reading these different articles, it just makes me second think whatever I say.
The other day a student in class mentioned that being color blind was just ridiculous. I also agreed to that in that when people say "I don't see color, I see no difference, we are all the same". I feel like that also in a way can be racist. Although one might not mean it in that sense, color is there. People just have to accept that there is different color people and everyone is different in there own ways. This doesn't mean someone should prejudge someone else based on color either. I feel like today in society, there is so much negative prejudging that things turn to go bad in most cases. The best way to really know what a person is like is to actually meet them and talk to them.