In my mind, racism can come from anyone anywhere. I thought that it was someone just making a harsh judgement against another person of a different color. I didn't know there were "rules". This statement or fact was so eye-opening to me that I wanted to know more.
Before I got the chance to actually look it up, Malcolm X mentioned on page 340, "I was a 'racist'. I was 'anti-white.'" So wait now Malcolm X, highly ranked in the black community, but still lower in power than a white male is calling himself racist? Now this is really confusing, because I thought according to what we discussed in class he couldn't be?
The definition of a racism can be found at http://racerelations.about.com/od/skillsbuildingresources/g/racismdef.htm
On this site they explain that there are two definitions of a racism. 1) a person's belief that their race is more powerful than others 2) discrimination against another race. They do touch on the fact that people can not all be racist due to differences in power. This is still difficult for me to comprehend. Maybe because I am a white American, that I am accidentally oblivious to true racism? So I kept looking and I came upon a blog (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080527150017AAXzsxv) discussing this exact topic. One comment that really sort of figured it all out for me was, "there is a fundamental difference between stereotyping and racism" which leads to "there are not as many racist around today". This is true, kids make comments everyday stereotyping, but they are not considered racists. Racism is truly criticizing the harsh differences between cultures.
To support my thought I also found a letter to the editor of The New York Times, explaining that racism is not just from a higher power. It could have started with those without power. They were criticizing and making comments to those that have "the power" (Ludwig).
Also, Reverend Al Sharpton was called a racist in the blog, because he is constantly criticizing the whites. No matter what happens it is always our fault and we need to do something about it. But not all whites are like that so he is generalizing. In class we discussed how Al Sharpton is the Malcolm X of this time. Therefore, if Al Sharpton is considered a racist than Malcolm X was correct, and can be considered a racist as well.
The final fact I want to put in, is that the President of the United States is African American. He has the most power in this country. This shows that today racists can be any color, because the barrier of higher and lower power is broken.
Work Cited
Ludwig, Louie. “Racism and Power.” Letter. The New York Times 25 Aug. 2002. 8 Mar. 2009
2 comments:
I loved loved loved this blog cay. When we were talking in class about this, I was thinking the same exact thing. To me, I thought racist could be any person against another, not just higher power vs. lower. It stretches to religion and gender and sexual orientation. I'm completely against it all, because I try to stay open minded, but some people aren't quite like that. The blog that you had a link to really actually taught me something new. It makes sense that stereotyping and racism are used interchangeably sometimes, and now I realize that the little comments I hear from people around me are just stereotypes, not racist remarks. I'm beginning to wonder what else people can possibly stereotype nowadays, it seems as if it just never ends.
<3 sammm.
I like the website that you cited. I actually learned a lot from it and I didn't know what racism exactly was. Now I know. I actually disagree with what you said about the discussion we had in class. In the URL below, it shows an example of prejudice. If you like you like video, i can give the actual file. Anyways, I think that a person needs to be on top of another group to be racist towards them because what makes them powerful is that they have the arrogance while the lower group just take it like pacifists and keep on thinking that the situations will just blow over them sooner or later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLdpcES7Vpg
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