a difference of opinion

One of the biggest conversations on racism in my college sociology classes was whether racism still existed.  The professor would show the class for forty-five minutes how racism still existed today and how for people of color it is harder to get a quality education, job, car, you name it, than someone that is white.  Of course the last five minutes of class a person who raise their hand say “I grew up in a poor family and I pulled myself up by my boot-straps”, completely ignoring the discussion of the previous forty-five minutes.  

I used to think that person was just one person in a mix of an overwhelming majority of people who saw existing racism and wanted to do something about it.  It seems as though racism, although still existing, was not as bad.

And it’s not.  There is no slavery or Jim Crow laws.  But over the past decade or so persisting prejudice and overt racism against illegal immigrants (most coming from Mexico) and people of Middle Eastern decent (Muslim or not) is getting worse.  Maybe it has been a big problem before that, but this is my perspective.  The classic case of this is from just last month when NPR fired their news analyst Juan Williams, who on said on Fox News made several blatantly prejudiced comments about Muslims.

I’m not here to discuss whether NPR was right or wrong to fire Williams, but whether we should be tolerating what Williams said, how he acted, and accept a culture that promotes racism against other human beings.  

Although white people have mailed bombs through the mail, bombed world trade centers, and murdered hundreds of people in the United States there is no racial profiling against white people – yet people today not only think but are acting to perform racial profiling for illegal immigrants and people of Middle Eastern descent to the point of detrimental heartless acts and death.

It makes me sick to my stomach the way we treat others in this country and people around the world.  Only education, awareness, and building relationships with people that are different than us will truly make the world a better place – a place full of peace and well being.