Every March there is a certain holiday in which people like to wear green, go out, and drink all day long. This holiday would be St. Patrick's Day, so named after the death of the patron saint of Ireland.
It's a holiday we all look forward to every year. But there's a darker side to its history.
Back in 1845 after the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland, thousands of Catholic Irishman fled their homes and journeyed their way to America for a new start. Unfortunately, America decided they wanted nothing to do with the Irish and refused to serve them or hire them. Eventually, as generations came and went, they became accepted in America and held amazing St. Patrick's Day parades every March 17th to honor their patron saint.
You would think that the racist rhetoric would be over in 2018 but it's not. A few days after my friends and I had fully celebrated this holiday, I came across an article about an Irish pub in Detroit, Michigan.
At first, the title had me outraged because I thought it was another one of those articles about someone being awful to another group of people that is so often seen on the media. Then I read through the article and I realized I was right. The owners of the pub decided that were not going to serve anyone who claimed to be Irish or were even just wearing the color green. The people not even allowed inside the pub. The bouncer stood outside calling Irish people, "lower class" and "lazy." The pub also had "No Irish Pub" signs up on the windows.
And you know what? I'm glad this pub was racist.
This pub was being racist to make a point about racism. Repeat: The pub was being racist to make a point about racism.
A point that so many people often forget because we think, "this is 2018, how can anyone still be racist?" But it happens. Every. Day. It's always all over the news, Facebook, and Twitter. It shouldn't be happening but it is. It amazes me how often people can still be cruel to one another because they're scared of what they don't agree with or what they cannot understand.
The "pub" was actually a temporary pop up created by Dan Margulis, who works in advertising. Margulis rented out the empty space and recreated the fake Irish pub in between two of Detroit's more popular bars just in time for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. He wanted to make people think about how they treat other people.
Down the street from the fake pub, flyers were being passed out to inform people of what the goal of this stunt was because people were becoming angry and would point out that the pub was being racist. And that was the goal: to make people think and to make them empathize. And once people understood what was happening, they were supportive of the fake pub and what it was trying to accomplish.
"On a day when everyone is proclaiming solidarity with an immigrant group ... we wanted them to feel what it was like to be treated like an Irish immigrant... years ago in this country, and, hopefully, that would get them to think about the way we treat current immigrant groups," Margulis said.
While there have unfortunately been many racist acts across several immigrant groups over the past several hundred years, the current immigrant groups Margulis is most likely talking about are the Syrians, Muslims, and Mexicans, just to name a few. These are just people who are trying to give their families a better life. These are just people who are trying to give their kids a brighter future than the one they had. No matter where we come from, whether stateside or a different country, isn't that we all want for our families?
We should be rallying together instead of tearing each other down because life is already hard enough as it is.
Some people are so focused on their differences that they don't always realize we're all the same. We are all human beings on this planet who are given such a short amount of time to live. A speck on the universal time frame. We all are born, we breathe, we bleed red, and we all die. Our differences in culture and music and art are what make us unique, and learning to come together about those differences is something that we should be celebrating.
If you hear or see something, speak up about it. Racism is not okay. No one deserves to be treated with anything other than respect.
