Racism Now and Then

Racism to me is something that I will have to grow with for the rest of my life. Just because people of colour now have the right to vote and do things freely does not mean that racism has suddenly left this planet. Racism is a thing that is now not society acceptable, racism is not as violent as it used to be but it is still there. The KKK is still here burning the crosses, the only difference is now they no longer murder black people. Racism has been formed into something that makes people uncomfortable, something that we close our eyes on, something that isn’t a concept that makes sense to people. People of colour speaking about their oppression should never be something uncomfortable to talk about, unless you yourself is a racist. To some racism is a joke, something that is easy to joke upon, giving white people the n-word card, letting them point and call others Terrorists, Chinks, and Paki’s. To some, racism is the Trayvon Martin, the Michael Brown and the Sandra Bland. Racism is something that is scary, something we fear. Racism is something that people grow up with, it is taught to them like how they were taught to speak, it has mind of its own, hating different groups of people just because their ancestors did. Racism is no longer as loud it is now formed as white people never saying anything offensive to a minority group about the minority group, but you’ll turn around to your friends and scream out the n-word and the only way you’ll justify that it’s okay is because it isn’t the hard ER. When you get called out the words, “but what’s it to you?” as if i don’t worry those same people call me a by racist slurs behind my back. White people will usually use the defense “but you called me a cracker what’s the difference?”. The difference between you calling me terrorist or a paki and me calling you a cracker is one benefited from it while the other didn’t. Cracker was never a thing to oppress white people, if you were a cracker you were superior and you were rich. If your people are generalized as a bunch of terrorists your family is forced to stay an extra 20 minutes by the border being questioned on who we have connections we have back home. In my biased opinion, I do not believe in reverse racism, if reverse racism was such a thing it, the words reverse wouldn’t be in them. I believe prejudice and racism is two different things, white people express prejudice from people of colour who have been killed, enslaved, beaten, and/or bombed by white people which create a fear in us. White people will never suffer from a real racial oppression but they will know how we as a community feel towards the ignorant ones who have triggered a fear. To suffer from a racism, you need to suffer from the systematic oppression created by Europeans.  Racism will never vanish and it will always be here, it’s not always as loud but it will always be here.

One comment

  1. etate · June 12, 2017 at 9:39 pm ·

    Thoughtful response Sama, thank you!