I think a lot of times people try to use racism as an excuse. Its a term that has become grossly overblown. Everything can be seen as racist if you want to look at it that way. Its one thing to blatantly have someone come out and say that they don't like a certain race or to commit a hate crime but lets be serious for a minute- If a white man and a black man get into a fight over something and the black man dies, it will only be a matter of time before someone pulls the racism card no matter how outlandish or unrelated it might be.
We live in a society where political correctness has done more damage than good. All of a sudden everyone is offended by everything. Somewhere in the world every race is disliked. If you were a white person going to a nonwhite area people might not like you. The whole issue of racism is one that people seriously need to re-examine. I think it is completely and utterly wrong for someone to make fun of his or her own ethnic background and then get mad when someone else does it. I'm Italian, if I make an Italian joke I have to be able to take it then from someone else.
I think people put too much restriction on things. For years we've heard that you shouldn't use the "N" word and I'm the first person to agree with that. It's a horrible term that brings up negative historical connotations and should be abandoned. But then, if its such a horrible term, why would one black person WANT to use it in reference to another one? It just doesn't make any sense. I will never understand that with any form of slur. If I don't want someone calling me a cracker, I'm not going to use it as a positive term for another white person. If people want something gone it should be gone completely and not become instead, some sort of conditional use because that's where problems arise.
Races exist if you want them to. People are always going to be racist because its always going to be passed down. Should it be? Of course not. But it will always exist especially in a country like ours where every couple of years there comes a new ethnic group into the mix. People are resistant to change or things which are different, it takes time. The instant the racism card is pulled people raise their backs. Maybe people should stop being so petty and defensive about their ethnic differences. Say what you want about me, tell me I don't know because I've never experienced it and you'd be wrong. I was a white girl who went to school being one of the only white girls until I hit high school, I know what racism is, everyone does. Everyone has experienced it in one form or another.
The real problem is that instead of people going about their lives and trying to take people for what they are, we've completely turned society around where a person goes out in the world EXPECTING racism and thats where the problems come. If you go out fearing racism you're going to find it even if its only in your own mind.
edited for typos
And hang on, when did you win the discus?
Updated On: 5/18/05 at 11:43 PM
