When I was little, my parents taught me to treat everyone with respect. They taught me that everyone was equal, they taught me that appearance didn’t matter. Unfortunately, even though parents have an enormous impact on their child, so does their environment. Living in a small town, going to a small school, people tend to be small-minded. Without sugar-coating anything, the town I grew up in has no diversity whatsoever.
Recently, I watched a short three-minute long video that was named “I am not black, you are not white.” The video began with a man talking about labels. As he continued to narrate the video, faces of people of all ages, religions and races appeared on the screen, all mouthing the words that were coming from the narrator. By the end of the video, I had chills. He discussed the issue of labels. We do not choose the color of our skin, we are simply born with it. He made the point that if a car passed down the street, we would not point out that the car was white or black, we would just let it pass, knowing it was a car. Our bodies are our own personal cars that we are born in. So why can’t people treat our bodies walking down the street like the cars driving down the street?
Before I got to college, I didn’t think of race issues nearly as much as I do today. I knew that they still went on, even though we’re living in 2016 and not 1950. I knew that there were still racial slurs and disgusting names, but they never directly affected me.
The other day, an episode of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" was on. (I know, I know, I’m one of those reality TV suckers…Don’t judge me!) The episode airing was the one that had Kim going to Australia after North was born. While she was at her appearance, a man in blackface showed up and tried to get close to Kim, calling out racist names toward her and the baby. On the flight home, North was crying on the plane and a lady yelled out “shut that black baby up!” After the incidents, Kim felt the need to write a blog regarding her feelings about racism in today’s world, and even though Kim might not be the brightest crayon in the box, what she had to say really had a huge impact on me. Kim wrote in her blog:
“To be honest, before I had North, I never really gave racism or discrimination a lot of thought. It is obviously a topic that Kanye is passionate about, but I guess it was easier for me to believe that it was someone else’s battle. But recently, I’ve read and personally experienced some incidents that have sickened me and made me take notice. I realize that racism and discrimination are still alive, and just as hateful and deadly as they ever have been.”
The craziest thing about what she said is, I am guilty of the same thing; a lot of us are. Until we get personally affected by something, we don’t give it much thought. Until I was personally affected by racism, I didn’t give it much thought. Until I was getting the weird looks from strangers because of who I was with, I didn’t give it much thought. Until I felt attacked by people who I believed loved and cared about me because of the people I was choosing to surround myself with, I didn’t feel impacted.
But honestly, why is racism still such a huge issue? The color of our skin is just a label. Our bodies are just the cars we drive around in. It’s 2016 and racism is still an issue. It’s still an issue because of the older, uneducated generations passing down their beliefs to their decedents. But why are we even giving this a thought? When our grandparents and great-grandparents try to force their ideas down our throats that a person is evil or bad, or dirty or trashy because simply of the color of their skin, why are we listening to it? Why are we entertaining it? It’s 2016 and racism is still an issue. And it’s up to us to stop it.
