Asians, Blacks or Whites?
Racism as we know it despite all efforts including online and live campaigns continue to ravage our communities and it has become a cancer that has to be rooted out.
The sad truth is those who preach and are prime movers of the anti-racism movements are also most times caught up in the web.
Truth be told, no race is free from racial abuse, however some races are more susceptible and suffers a higher degree of such compared to the other.
The subject of racism continues to creep into the nooks and crannies of our communities despite the worldwide campaigns against racism, it is really depressing to see a someone deprived of something he or she merits, or maltreated or verbally/emotionally/physically abused/harassed/assaulted or even get murdered on the basis of his/her skin colour.
The phrase ‘I can’t breathe’ still resonates in my mind till today. This phrase is a modern reflection of the world around us today, the earlier we realize that this phrase applies to every single one of us; Asians, Blacks, Whites and all other races, the better for us before it destroys us from inside out by suffocating ourselves, ‘racism is indeed choking us’.
‘Ethnophilia’ or ‘ethnomania’ is a term that refers to ‘unnatural obsession with ethnicity or race’. This is a severe form of racism which can beget ethnic cleansing and I fear if care is not taken, this is a man-made disaster waiting to happen.
The sad thing about racism is that for writers or any individual who had something written about racism on any platform, blogs, social interactive apps such as twitter, instagram, facebook and others, the first thing a reader does is to look at the ‘name and profile picture’ of the writer and he or she immediately comes to a conclusion about the content of the write-up even without reading the content.
This in itself is an act of racism(judging the writer based on the nature of his/her skin color).
Then to make matters worse, the reader even after hesitating to read through, he decides to take a glimpse and the content of the write up actually supports his/her earlier assumptions because indeed the writer was ‘racially-bias’. This therefore completes the cycle of this kind of racism.
In other words, the writer/reader decided to take a side while writing and/or reading the article.
So, what side are you on?
The earlier we realize that ‘There are no sides when it comes to race’ the better for us.
We live in the same world, breathe the same air, do 70–80% of things in common; go to school, brush our teeths, comb our hairs, reproduce, work for a living amongst other things, therefore there should be no room for discrimination nomatter how tempting it may be for perpetrators.
Recommendations
- Anti-racist campaigns should be intensified all over the world, both online and live campaigns. The simple message should be ‘all lives matter’ and ‘live and let’s live’.
- Anti-racist messages should be preached in our worship centers be it a church, mosque and others, every now and then.
- Racism and racist acts should be discouraged in our communities preferably educating both young and adults on the human values and virtues other than inculcating racial supremacy into them.
- Justice should be served for all cases that are racially orchestrated.
- Also, ‘playing victims’ has done more harm than good as regards racism and so should be strongly discouraged. It makes one sensitive to all words, phrases, sentences, or acts which ordinarily the source had no intentions of a racial connotation. This should be discouraged because it perpetuates the racial cycle.
- Terms like mongoloids, Hispanics, Caucasians, Negro etc may have negative connotation when used in certain places, times, circumstances and as such should be seldomly used or use should be discouraged.
#StopAsianHate
#AsianLivesMatter
#BlackLivesMatter
#WhiteLivesMatter
#AllLivesMatter
Thanks for reading.
Feel free to drop a comment in the comment section or @olaniyijohnny@rocketmail.com.
