Brent Staple’s essay “Just Walk On By” did a good job at pointing out the evident racism that still exists, albeit his own experience of being threatened with a Doberman in a jewelry store because of shear ignorance was a little unbelievable. While I fully agree that there are people (probably more than we would think) who have an underlying fearful and prejudice view of black people, it’s harder for me to believe that it’s still expressed in our society, especially today. Now that the country has voted a black man into office, it should really be embarrassing to publicly show hatred or intolerance toward someone just because their skin is a different color from yours. On the night of the election, I heard someone explaining the reasoning for why her parents would never accept a black man as president. It was because her brother was shot and killed by three black men, and ever since then, they have never been able to trust black people. My mouth dropped. I know I can’t put myself in their shoes completely, but I honestly don’t think that they would be frightened of the entire Caucasian population if their son was killed by three white guys. My mouth dropped. It was just a wakeup call for me of the effect fear has on humans. If we experience something negative, like the death of a family member, or being robbed, something as irrelevant as a person’s ethnicity can become our defense against it. Staple’s explanation for the general “male dominance” factor in gang violence shed some light on the situation as well. It is not merely a color issue. Now on the other hand, it is just common survival skills to avoid six foot tall men in large jackets walking alone in the dead of night, so Staple can’t fully blame that on racism.
I think our ability to reason is our greatest quality, but it is our downfall in so many ways. And something like racism, no matter how many ways it is looked at, can never be fully understood, and therefore never fully overcome. That’s my pessimistic view on it.
1 comment:
Deanna, I totally agree with you that this defensive reaction, which is based solely on physical appearance and past judgments and experiences, is extremely ignorant. Your personal example of overhearing someone’s reasoning on why her parents could not support an African American president explains so much of many people’s subconscious reactions and discriminations. Many times when an individual has a negative encounter with someone of a different race, the person will subconsciously refer back to this experience when interacting with another person of that particular race. Although this may seem like a natural reaction, especially in a situation that deals with the loss of a loved one, it is still extremely racist and ignorant to respond in this manner.
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