Women's Studies Class: Actual blog post 6

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000-92

2 April 2015

Racism and racial injustice continues to be a huge problem in today’s society. Whether you are Caucasian, African-American, Latino, or Asian, racial injustice is applied to everyone, not just one specific race. I like how Anup Shah defined racism in his article on racism in Global Issues. He says that, “Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superior to others.” I like this because dictionaries that I have looked up “racism” in define it as, “a belief or doctrine that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others;” and while that may be true to a point, racism is more than one race believing that it is above another race. A large portion of it is the stereotypes that certain races automatically have certain qualities; such as that “African-Americans love fried chicken,” or that “Asians are bad drivers,” or that “Caucasians can’t dance, or have no rhythm.” The simple stereotypes such those are small parts that, when combined with the right things, can lead to what I am going to call, “superiority racism.” Examples of superiority racism can be seen throughout the world and throughout history, and include the colonization of modern day North America, Native American genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust. Many things that people associate with race stem from the European era of exploration and colonization. Back then, socio-economic status was based upon wealth and religion. When the Europeans first colonized North America, their laborers were European indentured servants. Indentured servants were lower-class people, who had agreed to work for a number of years set upon by their employers in exchange for passage to the New World. After the slave trade grew and developed, the employers opted for slaves that they could keep to work for as long as they pleased over indentured servants, who would eventually pay off their debt. This is mainly how skin color came to be the main factor in a person’s socio-economic status. In “There Is No Hierarchy for Oppression,” Audre Lorde states that, “wherever oppression manifests itself in this country, Black people are potential victims.” African-Americans are not the only targets. Depending on the situation, the targets could be those of Asian, Caucasian, Middle-Eastern, or Native American backgrounds. She also mentions that the Ku Klux Klan goes to court to force the board of education in Detroit to remove books that they think “hints at homosexuality.” While the Klan is full of white-supremacist, homophobic members, at this point, barely anyone takes them seriously. However, in today’s society, we do deal with injustice in gender and sexual preference. As the child of a lesbian mother, I know this all too well. The city in which I live is mostly populated by conservatives. When we first moved here, our neighbors had a hard time accepting what my mother and her partner were, and would go so far as to not let their children go to our house. Eventually, they have accepted it, although they still may not like my mother or her partner, they are at least polite to them now. I think that this is partly due to the fact that my parents are the nicest women ever, and the fact that being gay is becoming more prominent and socially acceptable as the number of people fighting for the equality of all rises. We have made a lot of progress in ending social and racial injustice, but I believe we still have a way to go. I believe that trying to end systems of social injustice and racism is a crucial part in making the world a better, and more peaceful place for everyone. If you want to get involved, I links to websites and their contact information are listed below.

Also, enjoy this video. I absolutely love history and loved being reminded about how the color of our skin became relevant through the years: