Bugs

There have been a number of instances recently that I have noticed where people have commented on racism against whites in instances where people are striving to create equal representation. This is very upsetting to me.

It is also very upsetting to me that people are arrogant enough to view life in that manner. Here's what I want anyone who thinks that they are being discriminated against because they are white to understand: It is because you are white that you have privileges in the first place and it is because someone else is not white that they need help in gaining those same privileges.

I see arrogance here because so many people think they inherently deserve said glory because they are inherently white. For example, they become upset when the "playing field" is "leveled." I mean, really, how dare anyone give an opportunity to someone else based simply on the color of their skin, right? Yeah, maybe what should really be happening is that all higher education, executive and managerial positions should only go to the majority race, the people who have historically been the only ones to be offered such positions or to be able to afford these luxuries. And that being the case, all the workers should be of the majority race as well so that they can by default work their way to the top.

Don't people realize that this is what would happen if there was no control of the issue - that every forward movement would be reversed and we would become even more bland and non-representative of our collective huddled masses? When we don't address things, they don't get better on their own and they don't go away. People seem to think that race isn't so much an issue in our culture any more. Sure, then why are there still hate crimes committed in the name of racism? Why are there racial slurs? Not just "spick" or "nigger," how about "I've been Jewed" or "He gypped me"? And if race is such a non-issue, then how is it that whites can think that they have become the target or racial hatred? It most obviously is an issue and the longer we try to ignore it or try to tell ourselves that it is going away or getting better, the more blind we become to the truth.

Marcy recently wrote a great article for the BSU paper, The Arbiter, in which she discusses this exact topic. You can read the whole article here, but this paragraph does a good job of explaining the topic as well:

"Racism is a form of oppression that cannot be understood without comprehending the systematic, institutional forces that uphold it. Like the word "nigger" that linguistically signifies the violence of racism, one cannot use either term without conjuring up an entire history of both words. Racism in this country is deeply tied to the history of enslaving and torturing an entire group of people who were forcibly removed from Africa and enslaved by white colonists in the Americas. This racism led to the genocide of over 60 million people of African descent as well as the Holocaust that exterminated over 100 million indigenous peoples whom we now consider Native American and Latin American. Consequently, the word racism is reserved to refer to a collective phenomenon in which the dominant power (read: white) oppresses marginalized groups (read: brown)."

If you should care to do some more reading or research to educate yourself - because education is a good thing for every person - on the "here's what's been bugging me lately" topic today, here are some links to sites I have located:

institutional racism
tolerance
women writers of color
NPR clip
center for equal opportunity
multiple links