Racism Issues in the Community - Essay Example

Race and Your Community Driving along the same congested streets from work to my apartment for about more than a couple of years is something I enjoyed and detest at the same time. It is enjoyable because somehow things I see around the streets help me to solve many things in my life that perplex me. I cannot exactly explain how and why those seem help me straigthen things out. It is detestable at the same time because it is another battle with traffic jam. It’s late in the afternoon and at this hour the sun is still high and would stay there for another two or three hours more before it totally hide behind these tall buildings and finally immersed itself on the horizon. I could see and identify everything around me and it seemed everything was just a copy of yesterday’s, which was a copy of the day before yesterday, and so on. And I guess would be same tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. People are the same, rushing towards the same definite directions as yesterday. They live by the minute and worry much of what happens the next hour. It is the same with the big cities in the country I came from, but much different from the town I was born and grew up. People in my hometown live by the day instead of by the minute and anxious of what might happen the next year instead of the next hour. Time is pretty slow and lenghty. The last turn towards my apartment building detached me from the bumper to bumper drive. I park just few meters away from the building door. People I have just passed by gave me, as usual, a how-in-the-world-he-is-driving such make of car. My car is not a luxury one, not even that expensive. But what make them give me that look as if I carnapped it is because I am driving a car of their country’s make and that their look seems telling me that I should be driving my own country’s make instead. Why? Don’t they race use Toyota, Hyundai, BMW, or Mercedes? Cars not their own country’s make? They are nice enough not calling 911 for a suspected carnapped car being driven by a member of the visible minority like me. Though not so many people give me such look; there are just a bunch of them. I heave my other bag to my shoulder from the passenger’s fron seat and go off the car. The same disrespectful schoolchildren that have just got out from their school service shout something at me again. I am not sure if they deliberately using an incomprehensible accent for me not to understand what they are yelling at me almost every day. Their school service dump them in front of the same apartment building almost the same time I arrive from work. So I meet these little rascals three or four times a week. I know they shout the same thing; it sounds the same. It is a scornful one because I look so different among adults they know and see. And there are the older children as well who are polite and responsible enough trying to stop them from yelling at me and, as if they are adults already, they are reprimanding the younger ones. Then they will look at me and smile as if saying sorry for what those little ones do almost daily. I just smiled back. For those schoolchildren, I look so different or may even be weird because of I look so differently from their father and other grown ups of their race. They have big eyes compare to mine which are small and chinky. Sometimes others make fun out of me by asking me why I am closing my eyes too tight everytime I am smiling and laughing. I know they were just joking so I usually gave them another smile. My nose isn’t pointed as theirs and stand shorter compare to most of them. Though I wear the same clothing but I could still be easily idenified as someone different in the midst of hundreds of them. Their skin color is white instead of yellowish like mine, as other people describe it. If not blondish, their hair is grayish and mine is black. Walking towards the gym where I go every other night is relaxing and warms me up for my work-out. Before I reach the gym is Mc Donalds where I stuffed myself with protein, carbohydrates, potassium needed for my work-out. And fat, extenders, preservatives, cholesterol and other junkies; they will be burned during work-out anyway. Many fast-food eaters in this city is somewhat a bit repudiative to a global community or cultural diversity. Not a single visit in this fast food I will not meet a what-are-you-doing-in-our-country look. Half of the customers has it, and half does not care what race I have or are happy they have me in their country and appreciate me. Few teenagers look like they want to yank off my shoulder my iPod earphone because it has lost its elegancy hanging on the shoulder of an inferior race ike me. Had not my girl friend of their race given me this iPod as a gift, I would have not used this. I am more comfortable with my iRiver. And don’t they use Sony or Samsung for their other gadgets? How in the world there are people like them with a detestable racism that lingers on their mind? Yes, racism is somehow still well alive and kicking here. Even now there are people who have that supremacy over others. And those belong to different race are just but slaves. But these kind of mentality are over; such days are over. Global community and shared culture is now on its height. Shrugging them off my shoulders, I take the last bite and sip of my biggies, stand up and disappear. My entrance to the dressing room of the gym makes some natives stop what they are talking and giggling about. They let me pass among them without saying anything and just talking with their eyes. My locker is at the end of the room and seems away from the rest. I am not sure if someone is using the lockers near mine; have not seen anyone using them before. Maybe the owners have different gym schedule with me. I met some of my gym mates and friends who are natives of this country and they are more civilized and do not even have a tinge of racism in them. I know, not all in their race is pea-brained idiot, of course. These friends of mine hate to belong in the club of their same race who think they own other races living in their country and even think they own their country. It would be too much if I will write all encouters with racist I have had. Many are bearable that I could easily brush off me and some make me think to file complaints to community leaders. I have been told often that I could file that hateful behavior complaint, but I could not be given any assurance that any quick action would be done since the attacks have been more of personal and it would be so difficult to prove, so on and so forth. As a consolation, I was encouraged to go back to them if the attack or discrimination is done by the company or my employer or even an employee of the company that affect somehow my daily work. It solace me in some way though I know that since the interests of the visible minority group I belong to is not represented in the community I am living, it would be a little difficult for the complaint would push through. Anyway, I decided within me that I would complaint though. I tried to think of my more than two-year stay in the present company I am working if I have any thing I would want to bring up to the Human Rights Department. But I could not think of any that was damaging enough or fatal to my humanity or dignity. Most of them seems like ordinary to me or I just get used to it since it is a daily affair. My friends who are black experience that same as I do. So we talk about those experiences everytime we have chance to sit and talk even for a while. We are having some sort of informal stress debriefing sessions that helps us a lot. There have been very few days that pass without encountering even a slight discrimination. I remember one time when I went to my favorite bookstore half an hour too early before they open. The door of the bookstore is glass made and its wall in front so you can see inside. I was about to enter the door when the guard inside gave me a stop gesture and indicated the signage on the door that says the opening and closing time of the store. So I decided to just wait outside and stood on the sidewalk in front of the store since half an hour is not really a long wait for me. After just about less than a minute a native couple approaching the store was very noticeable because there were very few passersby that day. When they were in front of me, I thought I would be kind enough to tell them that the store was still close and would not be opened in half an hour and so I told them that. They just gave me a kind look and simple smile and proceeded anyway. My eyes followed them and, I didn’t know, but I expected that they would be allowed by the same guard who had stopped me from entering. And so they were inside the store and I was just outside watching the couple roaming around the store and inspecting what they want to buy. I had self-pity for a while and just smiled it off easily when I realized they regard me inferior to them and that this country was theirs. The guard simply gave me a short he-couldn’t-do-anything look and turn his back and walked away from the door. There were so many times I think of writing a column in a locale newspaper about racial discrimination, but at the same time I thought that I might look very sensitive or simply over reacting for some of my native confidants that show and prove to me that though racism still proliferates in few areas it is greatly dwindling in most areas. And, anyway, the locale media, I believe is representing us of different race by writing articles favorable to us all. And with the understanding that anywhere in the world has a share of their own version of racism if not exactly a racial discrimination. Even in the third world countries, which its people are usually being discriminated in first world countries, there is discrimination among their locale people. Discrimination in some way is inevitable and it is not totally a bad thing. It becomes so evil only when it goes beyond border that it becomes a tool that violates human rights, as a United Nations report on racism reported. Reports on social injustices caused by racism keeps piling up on almost every human rights department in different countries. Just about four years ago the United Nations convened the racism conference as the global forum to eradicate racism and related violations. International organizations must help countries with high level of racism to focus or to start their remedy in communities. Many reports of violations happened in smaller communities which is much lower in bigger cities. In a community like where I am living, as a member of the visible minority, discrimation that sometimes lead to minor human rights violation becomes part of our daily life. However, having human rights education to each and every communities with the help of international organizations or NGOs can do something dramatically in truncating if not totally expunging this intolerance of different race. It is the sufficient knowledge and humanity that will make this people who perpetrate this belief that inherent differences among the diverse human races actuate cultural or individual achievement, that usually involves the idea that ones own race is superior and has the right to rule others. Racism is a global problem. It is a reality in almost every community in various countries. Many people of the visible majority perpetrates it. Minorities suffer whether mentally, emotionaly, and sometimes physically. They experience the reality of it. I myself encounter it almost everyday. My colleagues of the same and other race included in the visible minority have their own share of struggle. International organizations such as United Nations and NGOs, and the international communities have been trying to put a halt or at least a quick remedy and long term solutions for this problem of racial discrimination that leads to physical violence and human rights violation. This crisis will not be solved until communities cooperate in educating people of whatever race, from minority or majority, in peacful human international relations. Because unless this knowledge is instilled on everyone, discrimination will just simply cycle through generations. All ages must be educated well of the peaceful global coexistence. # --------------------------------------------- REFERENCES Bernasconi, R., Cook, S. (Eds). (2003). Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy. Indiana, U.S.A.: Indiana University Press Rita Maran. (March 22, 2002). A report from the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, Durban, South Africa, 2001. South Africa: Crime and Social Justice Associates Fredman, S., Alston, P., Burca, G. (Eds). (2001). Discrimination and Human Rights: The Case of Racism (Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law) (Paperback). USA: Oxford University Press. John Solomos. (2003). Race and Racism in Britain: Second Edition (Paperback). New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan Read More