What is Race?
When asked in our Values lecture “What is your understanding of Race, Ethnicity and Discrimination”? At a first glance I thought that I would know exactly what these terms meant but I found it extremely difficult to come up with a set answer. I had noted that Ethnicity represented an individual or group’s culture or tradition and Discrimination was linked to isolating someone based on their beliefs, skin, culture or faith. The main part which surprised me was my definition on Race… because I couldn’t think of one.
In my opinion modern day Racism is very much still alive if so more than ever. While most people may believe that their country or even they aren’t racist we may still have unconscious bias, which mean to uphold an immediate reaction or opinion about a topic, but you are afraid to express your comment out of fear it is ‘socially unacceptable’. Having learned about this I find that it is the harsh reality of how modern day people think.
Recently during one of my university lectures we were given countless examples of racism from the days of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Germany, when civil right was far from being part of society. However what I found out about modern day Racism shocked me. You see these radical groups aren’t just found in the history books they are growing in the hundreds around the world NOW.
An example that we saw was a white nationalists group in Charlottesville around two months ago. In this video clip there was an estimated 400 people demonstrating against a peaceful park protest for ‘Black Lives Matter’. During this demonstration you could hear the nationalists shouting “blood and soil!” and “White lives Matter!”-often related to Nazi fascist campaign slogans- to retaliate against the protest group. Another example was when the nationalists drove a car at 80mph through a packed street of protesters who AGAIN were campaigning for ‘Black Lives Matter’ an incident which sadly killed one person and injured many others.
I personally uphold the opinion that everybody is on a level playing field no matter if they are Black, White, Asian, Catholic, Muslim the list is endless. Reflecting on my original opinion of discrimination I would say that it is much more extreme than I believed. Could you imagine the uproar which would happen if all of a sudden white people were seen to be inferior to black people? Or if white people were being murdered while they innocently protested or walked home at night? If we could not imagine this to be a reality for some then how it is acceptable for others to be treated this way?
As an aspiring future professional I will strongly maintain these views. I feel that from the moment that any child enters a classroom they should be accepted not only by myself as teacher but by their peers. I hope that teachers and myself can work together to encourage a positive attitude towards different cultures and traditions rather than find it acceptable for people to have such discriminant attitudes. However everyone must play their part in this.
