I was talking to my Debate coach today about my school and his first/renewed impressions. He had very little good to say about the administration, which was expected since the Debate teams seems to be the only people expected to follow the asinine rules, but he did say one thing about the students that sparked my interest.
He said that our students put a lot of emphasis on race. Now he made sure to clarify that it wasn't racism...though there is still plenty of that floating around darker(or lighter as the case may be) corners of the school. He simply said we always include race into everything we do. For instance...we would start a story like this: "so this black guy in my English class" instead of just "so this guy in my English guy."
I realized soon after that I did it to...and this worries me. Really worries me...cause i'm not sure what it means...Does it indicate that our little society is moving away from racism, and this is just the last remnants? or does it foretell the future? My entire life i've been determined to fight racism because of my family(a good number of my dad's relatives are racist, along with one or two of my closest aunts/uncles), and now i may be showing signs of budding racism myself...
I'm gonna go talk to my brother about this...he always seems to help me with this kind of stuff...
I think the emphasis on race (or not) would come from the intent of the person talking, or from the listener's response.
The one telling about the event may just be using better imagery to help with storytelling, painting a better picture for the audience.
As for the listener's response, maybe they are just picturing the scene you tell of better. Or maybe they're thinking, "well, of course he did/said that, if he's Black."
It's all perspective.
read my blogs!
ProU
Not ProU
Some mistakes can't be undone/ it'll never be like it was/ and wishing for it only makes it worse
Rocky Votolato
You are not racist when mention the ethnicity of the person you are talking about in the story. As long as you don't tell the story with hatred for that person's ethnicity then you are just fine. It's good that you are anti -racist especially since you come from a family that is racist.
Please read and rate my blog :
http://www.progressiveu.org/134728-you-can-find-me-and-others-progressiv...
Comments are appreciated . Thank you.
It's good to see that you want to bring an end to the alleged racism in your family but the best way to do it is not to worry about it. Just don't even look at the shade of one's skin color and don't process one's skin color as a characteristic of that person and you should be fine. Don't try to do it or you'll notice skin color more. There are so many good people in the world but there are also many bad. From my experiences the shade of one's skin color never correlates to positive or negative personality traits. If I don't like somebody's personality (mean, selfish, ignorant, condescending) then I don't like that person. I don't care if they are as white as snow or as black as the midnight sky with a new moon. I don't like them. Good luck with your situation and I'm glad to see you're trying to do your part in ending ridiculous racism. In our ultra politically correct world our society went so far to combat racism that we are now fostering it (most affirmative action programs, sensitivity training, constant reminders that Obama is an African American, etc.).