Racism

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What do you think should be done against racism?

Young Left, an organization I'm a member of, sent me some rather interesting thoughts that I thought I might translate to English.

Racism needs to be fought and educated against... of course, I feel similarly about nationalism and religion, so I am admittedly biased. While I support the point, the substitution of one group for another seems to be counterproductive.


M.

I don't know what can be done. Racism is a particular case of xenophobia. Xenophobia seems to be buried deep in the human psyche. It may be a genetic survival trait. Someone is different therefore they are not of my tribe and thus may be competition for our tribes survival or they may even be dangerous.

Apart for education that racism is wrong for logical and moral reasons, I think in the end it comes down to people of different races mixing in a meaningful way with one another from a young age to grow knowing that differences of skin colour are not a reason for fear.

I was brought up in a little town in England in the 1960's where the population was 100% white. A Pakistani family moved in sometime in the 1970's. The first. They were subject to an unbelievable amount of suspicion and racial taunting and maybe worse. I too felt suspicious about them. However, as I got older and did my "A" levels at a larger town I mixed with people of various races and discovered they were no different to me, and some had different and exciting things to eat .

By the time I'd gone to to University and mixed with a huge pool of people there was no racism left in me. I also had close friends of various races. Similarly my xenophobia towards homosexuals had disappeared too. Mixing with people who are different seems to be the best way to solve such problems.

Perhaps you can have events where cultures can come together and share? Not things like religion, that could blow up in your face. Food is always good. Lots of different cultures have excellent different ethnic foods - an excellent way to break the ice and get people talking.

I think we can all agree that racism is wrong, but we can only go so far in fighting racism before we start infringing on free speech. Would any of you really want to go as far to make using racial slurs illegal? I don’t think I would be willing to go quite that far.

I agree with makuranososhi that people need to be educated on the topic of racism so people can see how illogical it is, but at the same time, that also has its limitations. People who are racists will have little to no desire to educate themselves on a topic in which their mind is already made up on. I think we just have to accept that racism will remain part of the human psyche for the foreseeable future.

Gina, just because someone works for a corporation doesn't make them a liar... there's a Venn diagram that would better show how there is overlap, but it isn't inclusive.

As for targeting the upper class, as stated I disagree... I think the real target of my contempt is the corporation itself, an intellectual construct that has been imbued with more rights and fewer responsibilities than the men and women who constitute its makeup. Bring universal accountability, and you have made a huge stride towards eliminating racism; so long as there is senses of entitlement, of cultures being foreign, strange and either above or separate from being held responsible, then I think the contention will remain. The greatest thing to do is to avoid supporting racism - that means not giving it credence in politics, in media, in religion, in society.


M.

To judge a person by skin color or nationality is about as sensible as judging that person by the color of the most left hair in his or her right eyebrow or by the thickness of his or her toenails. Skin color is easy to spot so stupid people find that a convenient marker. However, if a person comes from a culture that beats its women or kills them for some idiotic reason like family honor or perhaps punishes independence of mind I wonder if that would be considered racism.

there's still racism in Sweden? Sweden of all places??



I've never been racist, but I also grew up in a white area, so up until moving to London as a teen I'd never had any sort of interaction with people of other races. I hadn't realised that *any* type of comment that stresses the differences or stereotypes would be considered racist (for example - saying that black people dance well or that Asian people are good with sciences). so I had a few weird situations at first, but I quickly learned to recognise what can be considered rude and what shouldn't be said.

all in all I agree with the posters above. racism is just an error of judgement, education is the best way to minimise it.

I don't think fighting racism by using classism is a good path to go down.