Racism

[gerbie]

This week I have been forced to think about what is wrong with the world. The older you get, the more cynical I guess. I can’t remember who said it, but the saying “if you’re not left wing in your twenties, you’ve got no heart. If you haven’t changed to right wing in your thirties, you haven’t got a brain” does make sense to me. I just refuse to grow up.

I met an old friend this week, hadn’t seen her for over 8 years. It was great to see her again, we talked for hours about the past, our lives, our dreams, our plans, the future, politics, history, love and whatever else came up.

At some point she told about a night she and a friend went out on the pull, completely dressed up and ready to find a man. This was down under in Oz. Her friend had warned her, Australian men do not like ladies with a colour. It turned out to be true, however much she flirted, no man was interested. I don’t know what is wrong with these men, she is one of the most beautiful women I have seen in my life and believe me, I have seen quite a few.

When she told me I came up with more examples. How in the Dominican Republic, where almost everyone is somewhere in between black and white, those with the least colour still have the most opportunities. Cuba, supposingly everyone is the same, yet I noticed the differences as well. The US is too obvious for words, but my country is hardly better. If some Moroccan youth criminal does something, the press is all over it, some politicians even talk about sending them back ‘to their own country’, ignoring the fact that the young man was born and bred in the Netherlands, just happens to have Moroccan parents. In the meantime some ‘white’ idiots throw stones from bridges on cars on the motorway, but that doesn’t say anything about their race. The world is weird. Colour is never a factor in behaviour; there are nutters in all races, criminals and idiots as well.

I don’t care if an arsehole has the same first page in his passport or a different one, nor do I care if a friend of mine happens to be born elsewhere on this planet. Sometimes it just seems that I am weird, while I believe that most people think alike. It just doesn’t show all the time.

Comments

[tbone.livejournal.com]

Very well said. We're having a lot of issues in my area recently with this. We have a lot of illegal Mexicans who live and work here because trying to make an honest living in some parts of Mexico is extremely difficult. My wife had a good point about this. Nobody would care if we had a lot of undocumented Canadian immigrants. They looks like Americans, and they speak the same language. But because the Mexicans have a different skin color and usually speak a different language, we think we should deport all of them. It's really messed up.

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

As if a border, an agreement made by people somewhere in the past, says something about the people on either side of it.

[aquariusmama.livejournal.com]

The ignorance of some people is just incredible. I know I've written about Bigot Boy down the street before. The worst thing is when horrible offensive crap comes out of the mouths of people you truly like. The only thing I feel like I can do is call them on it. There is a couple down the street and I really, really like them but they say some horrible things sometimes and they just don't realize it. They're good people, really...so kind and so generous, she runs a daycare..I mean just really good hearted people, but so ignorant. Their daughter is 12 and I've had to have some talks with her about it because she has been raised to sound just like them. It's scary.
I think the best thing I can do is to raise my children have open, caring, tolerant and accepting hearts and minds.

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

I notice similar things in school. You discuss a subject and some teenager comes up with 'But those foreigners..', one can hear parents talking. It scares me that a lot of them do not recognize their own prejudice. I give similar examples who are completely ridiculous, yet they fail to see the similarity.

[brickhouse.livejournal.com]

Color is beautiful. Of course, as you said, "there are nutters in all races, criminals and idiots as well."

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

A completely different discussion, but I agree: Color is beautiful.

[joy-joy.livejournal.com]

I am one of the only women on my street who does not wear a headscarf. Every night cars on our street are broken into by boys shouting in Arabic. They try to provoke the few white people around here. They whoop and yell whenever the police come because they know the police won't do anything to them. All night long they drive scooters up and down under our windows. They knock down all the bicycles and jump on the wheels. My baby was almost hit by a boy driving a scooter very fast on the sidewalk. No children play in the schoolyard across the street because it is occupied with big teenage boys speaking Arabic, dealing drugs and cruising the street for valuables in cars. I have watched them attack a man and kick him repeatedly in the genitals while hitting him over the head with a club.
They swarm people trying to attend exercise and language classes in the community centre a few meters away, because they consider the community centre their turf. They never use the garbage cans. They pee on the school. They always spit on my path.

Am I racist when I get stressed about the Moroccans on my street? I used to be all about peace, love and understanding, but I dare you to live where I do in Amsterdam and keep on loving Moroccan teenage boys.

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

You are exactly confirming my point. Off course I know you are not a racist, you know as well as I do that not everybody from Morocco is a bad person. The ones in your street (and probably not even all, but just the ones you see every day) should be punished for their bad behaviour. Like everyone else who does something wrong should. Please do notice the difference, however difficult the situation sometimes might be.