Racism Dialogue

[artyemi]

One of my friends hates Mexicans. She's said this before. Initially I believed that she feels this way because her upbringing has somehow prejudiced her, and those feelings may be hard for her to overcome if her parents/family, and other external influences in which she grew up taught her to hate Mexicans. And then I thought she continued in this hate because she hasn't been exposed enough to people from different background to realize that being Mexican is a really tiny portion of what a person is. After all, what makes one Mexican?

Then, last week, she made that comment again, that very general comment, "I hate all Mexicans." She followed with the explanation that she hates all Mexican even though she's only met three so far and has hated two of the three. Here, she offers an apology to my boyfriend, who is Mexican, who is also in the car. And she said she felt bad for Nomas that he had to live in Mexico, because he was going to live with Mexicans. Her final comment was "If I was Mexican I wouldn't want to be."

My dear LV Friends, what I’d like to ask you is whether you see the world around you acting this way? And how do you respond to that? Have you been guilty of a general statement like that and why? What happen to make you realize you have to change?

[Tone]

I hate racist ****ers like that.

My dear LV Friends, what I’d like to ask you is whether you see the world around you acting this way?

Yes.

[Asip4u]

I don't see that very much in my area. You'll always have a few that are like that but people of all race hang out and so on. It's quite unfortunate that certain people cannot see things differently and for most of those ignorance is bliss.

[shh!]

My parents were red-neck cracker bigots. Once I realized how ignorant they were about other topics, I discounted virtually everything else they had to say about all minority populations and decided I would figure it out on my own. Besides, it takes up a lot of energy to hate people.

I think racism is based primarily on ignorance, and secondarily on stupidity.

P.S. - All of my siblings and myself ended up marrying racial or religious minorities. Our family now looks like a rainbow, and this generation is WAY cool, and our children are gorgeous and smarter than the prior generations!

:-)

[Junsui]

Aww that's great shh!

Yes, you see racism everywhere, but I don't think it's getting worse or anything. Here I hear a lot of mexicans talk shit about other mexicans. It's weird lol.

[Mish]

Good comments above

But...

What if I hate all insects???

[misombra]

she said that in front of serg? if she would have said that in front of me i would've had to tell her some shit.

[misombra]

one time this korean girl tried telling me that mexicans were the reason traffic is bad in the southwest. i thought this person was so trashy and ignorant for saying that, i feel sorry for people like that.

[whaywardj]

Hm. I'm pretty sure, rather than abstracting the incident into a generalized question of racism out there in The Great Wide Open, I'd personalize the hell out of it and ask myself why I would subject someone I loved to such a friendship.

[RSK]

Racism...I've been trying to figure this out for YEARS. Ever since I got a taste of it from my own experience.

Mexicans are beautiful people. So are Japanese, Irish, African, and so on...

Some people don't see this, because of the way they have been raised. Some people are racist, WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT!

Reasons for this behavior:

family upbringing (wanting to be accepted)
wanting to feel accepted by peers
lack of education
not seeing or being exposed to people of colour or from different background

There are SO many reasons for racist types of behaviors


I don't feel anger or hatred toward racist people. I feel sorry for them instead. Because they are missing out. They have been fed poisoness information. They fail to see the diversity for beauty (for which it IS)

Diversity = Beauty

Imagine a world with NO diversity. Uber depressing!

It was Martin Luther King who said it BEST: Judge me NOT for the colour of my skin, but for the content of my charactar.

[shh!]

I don't feel anger or hatred toward racist people. I feel sorry for them instead. Because they are missing out. They have been fed poisoness information. They fail to see the diversity for beauty (for which it IS)

I feel a great amount of anger towards them. They can be dangerous to minority populations.

[misombra]

so this girl knows 3 mexicans and she hates them?

if 3 mexicans equal all mexicans
and she hates 3 mexicans
she hates all mexicans.

wow, excellent logic!

[RSK]

I feel a great amount of anger towards them. They can be dangerous to minority populations.

i'm sorry shh! but i disagree with you here.

remember: anger begets anger!

having hatred and anger toward these people, only fuels them MORE!

i remember an open racist (who i happened to be assigned to as a roomate when i lived in the dorms as a freshman), he told me his views. He clearly didn't like me.

What did I do? I became an ear. I became a friend. I don't know where he is now, or what he is doing. But imagine that - i made a friend out of someone who wouldn't even talk to me!

He told me his views were that way, because he wanted to feel accepted by his friends and family...

i guess i'm just a lost person myself!

but i do feel that's the best way to approach a racist.

[RSK]

so this girl knows 3 mexicans and she hates them?

if 3 mexicans equal all mexicans
and she hates 3 mexicans
she hates all mexicans.

wow, excellent logic!

lol

that makes one of my points - a lot of racist people simply havn't been exposed to people of different backgrounds.

FOR A PERFECT EXAMPLE:

look at eastern europe. a region that has know war for DECADES. people have been born into War, and they die around the War...

...all these people know, is hardship in life...

...NOW, when they see an African for the first time, they don't know how to react - some people NEVER see black people there. And when they DO, they take out there Anger on them...

...IT IS TERRIBLE!

[shh!]

Perhaps, but I'd just as soon see them slither back under their rocks. Then again, I feel I am entitled to my anger - three children I know personally were victims of a racist man who went and shot them in a community center because they are Jewish. Then that man went and shot a Filipino (sp?) mail man because he wasn't white, only that poor guy died.