Is there such thing as a racist, or is it simply a case that people are prejudice?
Today people are quickly labeled Racist without thought. Yet are they really racist or simply prejudice?
A definition from the net of a Racist is “a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is superior to any or all others”. My first thought is what is a race? From what I gather race was used to label people from certain places with certain characteristics as if people were say from Africa completely different to those in Europe. By this, I mean being as genetically different as a cat is do a ant. But today we know we are all the same species of animal (Homo Sapiens) so should we still be labeling different races as if we are different? Is this simply now out of date? After all what race are you? If your white and from England chances are you will have all sorts of connections with other countries in your family line. We know that when the Romans came to the UK that the Roman solders were not all white but made up of different people from around the world, and chances are they had rumpy pumpy with the local English.
In recent years we have developed what we refer to as ‘PC’ or political correction. With this we now list what we consider to be ‘good’ words and ‘bad words’. The list updates almost daily. I am not sure who has written the list of words, though one suspects its by well meaning white middle class ladies who have set themselves up to be the law on words.
I often think of the Columbo episode where the professor explains that we should not let the words control us, but we take control of the words. We sometimes now see this, such as the gay community who call themselves queer, thus taking control of a word that was used to insult them. We see this to in Black society were the word ‘hahahahahaha’ is used each other. Thus taking control over an word of insult. Thus should we ban words or take control over them.
But are people Racist or Prejudice?
You may be saying, does it matter, both is wrong.
This is important. I would argue it is far better not to just label someone as a Racist just because they say something that offends you. It simply becomes an insult in itself. In other words you offend me so I call you a Racist as a form of insult. It may make me feel better but in achieves nothing. At most it pushes peoples views underground were they fester and not challenged or discussed.
We also go back to the punt too of a race. For instant if I said something about Muslims is that Racist? But how can a religion be a race, it simply cannot. Thus my comment would be Prejudice.
From my observations Prejudice thoughts appear to come from those who have no contact with certain people or communities. The most extreme was years ago when the hung a monkey as they though it was a French spy. Today this would seem nuts but at one point people presumed that people from other countries could look like anything.
Where people mix with others (say work and home) then Prejudice does not seem to exist as much. For instance those who are non Muslim who work and have friends Muslim see Muslims as no different to anyone else (indeed replace the word Muslim with Jewish, Asian, polish and so on, its simply an example) and everyone gets on.
Where often we see Prejudice is where people are cut off from other communities. For instance there are parts of the UK were its mainly white and people do not work and education is low. These people only knowledge of other peoples is from stories then tell each other and things they may see on the media. For instance if these people read the Daily Mail then they are fed each day that Muslims are bad and polish are taking jobs and homes. Some of these people may never in there lives meet someone who is not white. In such circumstances Prejudice will fester. But labeling them Racist for there views does not help. Far better to try to get people to mix with others and also allow them to openly express there thoughts and views, and calmly discuss things with them. For instance a lot of people think Muslims is a completely different religion to Christens, yet both believe in Adam and eve and Jesus and so on. From what I gather its almost the same religion just a different take on it. And people forget that when they get upset that Muslim cover there hair that Nuns (traditional ones) too, and also Jewish ladies do (some were wigs over there real hair when married from what I gather).
But we now are seeing places mix. One part of Leeds was a white only place years ago and someone told me it was even the BNP base. Today its mixed. In fact its now common place to see mixed families. This is why we should not fear such as the BNP as what support can they get from such areas? How can they sell the idea that the UK should be white only when most families now have mixed families in them. I cannot see anyone voting for a party that is wanting to send members of there family or friends to another country. Its why the BNP did so badly in the elections and I suspect will never do well.
I watched recently a South Park episode were they had a flag of the town. It was an image of a black man being hung and it was then discussed if it was right or wrong. At the end the children ask what is wrong and chef says its showing a black man being hung. The children point out that they never noticed it was a black man and just have seen it as men hanging a man. In other words they had not seen it as a race hate flag. I say this as it reminds me of the ‘Golliwog’. I use this as an interesting example as all my life the Golliwog was simply a cute logo on jam. I had never seen it as a ‘race’ thing. It was only 2 years ago someone told me that people considered it an insult. Over time things change. I suspect no child today would ever see a Golliwog as anything as a harmless doll. And while it may have had alternative meanings does it mean it should be banned today if it no longer is seen as bad?
http://www.dvtimes.com/2012/05/18/racist-or-prejudice/