Summer Morgan
Dr. Preston
Expository Composition
11/11/13
Much
has changed over the last hundreds of years and with certain leaders to thank
such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., racism is no longer a
normal view to have nor is it acceptable; but this doesn’t mean that it no
longer exists. Racist remarks and racial profiling occurs on a day to day
basis. Being a high school student I see it happening daily, I think it’s happening
so much that a lot of us don’t even really recognize it anymore. Whether it’s just
the nonchalant use of the word “nigga” or an ignorant stereotype thrown out
about the food someone eats or the sport someone plays, it’s literally
happening all around us all the time. A lot of the time these innocent remarks
are not made to hurt someone’s feelings or disrespect anyone’s race. In fact
more times than not, they’re said as a joke but does that make it okay? We’re
promised the right to our own opinions and a life full of freedom to say
whatever we want to say but we’re still always finding ourselves being
conscious of what is socially acceptable to say and whether or not it will get
us into trouble. Sometimes I also wonder if we look at situations and title
them as an act of racism when they’re not, so does that make us racist
believing that it is? Race isn’t something anyone gets to choose and why it
ever even began as a problem in the first place blows my mind but that doesn’t
change the fact that it is still an issue to this day in more ways than one.
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The
first amendment states that ultimately we have freedom of speech and the right
to say whatever we would like at any given time. Think about the circumstances
though, do we really have this right? We live in a world where we are promised
certain rights like the right to our own opinion and freedom of speech and
religion, etc but we then learn that these rights all have limitations. I can’t
stand up in the middle of a play or funeral and shout something at the top of
my lungs because that would be socially unacceptable. I can’t go up to my
teacher and call them inappropriate names because of the F I received on my
report because it’s against school rules.
There are tons of little rules that limit some of our most valuable
rights. It’s a lot like having the right to your own opinion… you actually don’t. Although no one can stop you from thinking
for yourself and holding and valuing your own personal opinions, these thoughts
and opinions are sometimes wrong and may even sometimes cause harm to yourself
or others. A lot of the time when a racist statement is made, the people who
said it may not personally think that they are doing anything wrong. They’re
simply voicing their thoughts and making their opinions known but while at the
expense of somebody else. This also may affect the way we communicate with one
another. These limitations may keep us
from saying something that we would have no problem saying to somebody else. If
talking to a person of color you may not make a statement that you would if you
were just talking to your parents because of being afraid of sounding racist or
causing offense. It can be a bit confusing at times because one person’s
opinion can be considered someone else’s racism so where do we draw the line? How
do we determine the difference between wrong and right, up and down, black and
white? Sometimes all that’s said is a fact. Nothing but the truth, but it can
be interpreted as a racist innuendo and may actually hurt someone’s feelings
and offend them on a personal level. But how can this be argued when the
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First amendment still
exists, how can we put restrictions on speech without restricting ALL of
speech. You can’t please everyone, and half of what you say WILL end up being
considered insulting to someone else. In the ideal world, people would have the
common sense to know what to say around whom and if someone were to slip up and
say something offensive, everyone would know how to ignore racial or
stereotypical comments without letting them define who they are.
The
other day during one of our class discussions on racial profiling, Dr. Preston
told a story about how he was with a friend who was a police officer and on the
job. He was observing his friend when a black man was just walking down the
street and the officer decided he felt it was necessary to stop the man and
question him. Dr. Preston wasn’t sure why it was necessary and just assumed
that the officer was only doing so because of the man’s race. The officer
searched the man and indeed found drugs on his person. When Dr. Preston asked
the officer how he had known, he was told that he could tell by the man’s body
language and how he was walking. So isn’t it just as racist assuming that it
was because of the man’s race as it would have been if that really was the
officer’s motive behind the search? I don’t mean to imply that Dr. Preston is
racist in any way, rather than just to show that we ALL innocently have our
moments of profiling based off of race. Why do those thoughts appear in our
mind? Why do we think that way? Why does race still make a difference to those
who know and truly believe that everyone should be considered equal? About a
month ago, the biggest football game of the season against St. Joe’s was the
reason for both schools to have a spirit day making fun of the other school. We
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at Righetti dressed up
as nerds and across the street on the other side for “Jinx Righetti Day” they
all decided to take a bit more of a racist approach and mock the Mexican culture.
Tell me what that has to do with Righetti High School? I’m not so sure either.
Although I know that no harm was meant and that it was all in good fun of the
cross street rivals, I believe that it was taken a little too far and is a
perfect example showing that racism exists even when it’s done innocently.
Another
recent example of racial profiling that we talked a little about in class was
the story of the thirteen year old boy who was shot while pretending to fire a
toy gun. The boy was shot by two officers, seven times in the short time period
of 26 seconds. The toy gun was described as looking very similar to a real one,
but think about it… seven times? Was shooting an innocent little boy seven
times necessary? Some may even argue that shooting him once was uncalled for
making seven an unbelievably unnecessary amount of shots. Was this shooting an
act of racism or is that just a possible answer to the unanswered question.
Would the outcome of this little boy’s life been the same if he was white? Or black?
It’s impossible to know any of this for certain, but what makes me sad is the
fact that it’s even being questioned in the first place. Whether this was an
act of racial profiling along with the average African man being questioned
while standing on the corner waiting for his bus or the Hispanic being pulled
over because they look “out of place”, we may never know for sure but we can
bet that it will be in the back of our minds, that we’ll all be thinking it. If
you have to wonder if there were racist motives behind such an already horrible
incident then it’s obvious that this is still a huge problem that no one has the
power to fix, and if they do how to go about it.
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Stereotypes
are fixed, over generalized beliefs about a particular group of people. They
have affected the way we think about various different kinds of people whether
we realize it or not. Some stereotypes have become so common that they may even
seem to be true. Asians are good at math, black people are better at
basketball, white people love starbucks, Indians are rich, Asians can’t drive,
black people love watermelon, white people can’t dance, etc. These are all
statements that I see at least once a day on social media sites meant to be
funny and statements that I hear all the time. They’re becoming so common that
they’ve turned into nothing more than jokes and people will even use these
stereotypes against themselves. My younger brother’s best friend is African
American and is always making jokes about how he loves Kool Aid and fried chicken
and Watermelon and how he can’t swim but he’s good at every other sport just
because he’s black. My brother once made a joke about it to him and he did not
find it to be funny. My brother was confused because he was constantly
listening to him make fun of himself by using racial stereotypes but was not
okay when other’s did. I wonder if my brother was black if he would have
thought it was funny. If it’s not what’s being said that’s offensive but who’s
saying it. Some psychologists say that having stereotypes of other ethnic
groups is normal behavior that will actually benefit each group because it
helps them in the long run to identify
with their own ethnic group which will provide feelings of protection and
safety. While they’re uniting those in the same ethnic groups these stereotypes
are also leading to social categorization which brings out prejudice attitudes
resulting in in groups and out groups. In groups are basically the majority, it’s
the group of people who feel they are different or better than those people who
they are prejudiced against. These members believe in stereotypes and are found
to discriminate against
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those who are
different. The out groups are the exact opposites and consist of what is
considered the minority. The out group is seen as different and often,
unfortunately, less human than those who are in the in group. They are the ones
being stereotyped and the ones being discriminated against. These groups are formed because people like to
feel a sense of belonging, even if that means making others who are just a
little different feel like they don’t belong here at all. Once again the
realization of this just leaves me so confused and ashamed. This country is
supposed to be a place where ANYONE can come to leave their mark, to make a
better life for themselves because of the opportunities and FREEDOM that has
been promised, yet we’re still dealing with these prejudices that seem to never
go away. There are a lot of people who although may be part of the “majority”
wouldn’t consider themselves part of the in group because they are not taking part
in the discrimination and do not feel that they are better than any of the
existing minorities.
A
big problem that comes from growing up with racist beliefs is bullying. If a
child has grown up listening to his/her parents openly display their racist
views than that child has never known anything better and will most likely take
those beliefs with him at school and it’s guaranteed to start problems. Luckily
I live in an area where there’s a little bit of every race and everyone’s
accepted at the school that I go to but I know that in other areas where there’s
a lot of one specific race, those who are different may have to go through
quite a difficult time. In the movie Bring
it on 3, Hayden Penettiere plays the stereotypical white, bubbly, popular,
cheerleader and she has to move to Crenshaw Heights. At her new high school,
everyone in the school is African American and she does not fit in at all. They
are not accepting and do not
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welcome her at all. The
reason they’re so cold towards her at first is because they think that she
believes that she’s better than them with her blonde hair and fancy clothes and
nice car. The hateful manner in which they treat her in for the first half of
the movie is the exact way they feel they are treated by white people. It’s really
just this big circle of prejudices that never seem to end. Yes, that is just a
fiction movie about a cheerleading competition but my dad, who grew up in Los
Angeles, has always told me that it really is like that at some of the high
schools in that area. My dad actually was stabbed by a large group of African Americans
at his high school while he was walking to school one day. He wasn’t doing
anything except minding his own business on his way to school one day to find
himself surrounded by what appeared to be a gang who stabbed him while calling
him “white boy” and then leaving. My dad was part of the minority at this
particular time and place and was punished for it. It’s horrifying to think
that they could have taken a more serious approach and my dad could have been
in real danger that day just because the color of his skin was different than
the color of theirs. I will never understanding that feeling of hatred towards
someone based on something that they have no control over. Innocent people have
had to face such horrible treatment from others because of race and it’s simply
shocking to me. Fortunately, I have never experienced or seen anyone bully or
be bullied because of race but there is a ridiculous amount of reports of
bullied children that resulted in serious consequences due to their race. Nadin
Khoury, a thirteen year old boy from Pennsylvania was kidnapped and then beaten
following by being hung from a tree by six other boys his age. The assault was
videotaped on one of the attacker’s cell phone and was then posted online which
is what led to their arrest. When trying to find out why Nadin was target by
these bullies, it was found that he was constantly being teased because his
mother was from Liberia.
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Around this same area
and time there were multiple other incidents of African immigrants being attacked
by others their age. It breaks my heart that this was happening to not only one
child, but to multiple. They were tortured because of where their family came
from and I won’t ever be able to fathom or even understand a little bit where
the attackers were coming from. I think that it’s crucial for parents to teach
their children from a young age that there is nothing wrong with somebody who
has a different color skin or who comes from somewhere different because then
these horrific stories of young kids being beat by other young kids would become
less common.
In
2005 there were 3,919 reported hate crimes and 21% were anti-white and 67% were
anti-black where seventy-five percent of the population was white and twelve
percent of the population was black. This data suggest that the victimization
rate for hate crimes based off of race is twenty times higher for blacks than
it is for whites. It all goes back to the in and out groups. Since the white
population was almost six times bigger than the size of blacks they were
considered the majority. The majority consists of those who discriminate and
find themselves to be way better than the minority. This explains why there
were so many more anti-black related race based hate crimes to occur. One story
that opposes the usual anti-black hate crimes is the story of was the tragic
murder of Channon Christian (21) and Christopher Newsom (23), a couple from
Tennessee who was kidnapped and then tortured for days by a group of five African
Americans. What was done to this innocent couple is too horrific and graphic to
talk about but what they went through is extremely hard to imagine. The five
that were arrested for the assault went out of their way to make the last four
days of Channon and Christopher absolutely
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miserable. Whether it
really was a hate crime based off of race is not a fact but it definitely is
thought by some that it was because this couple was white. No one should ever
have to go through what those two did, especially if it was just because of the
color of their skin. It’s difficult to think about having such strong feelings towards
another race that you could do such horrid things in spite of them. What really
got to me after reading this story was how much of an effort these people put
into the torture of this young couple, it makes me sick to my stomach that
anybody on this planet could do such a thing to another human being. After leakage of this crime, it was found
that there was no coverage of it anywhere in the media. Conservative columnist
stated, “There is a discomfort level with stories that have black assailants
and white victims … If it doesn’t fit some sort of predetermined narrative of
how we view taboo subjects like race and crime, there’s a disinclination to
cover it.” An estimated thirty white
supremacists got together to protest the lack of coverage but prosecutors still
denied the crimes as hate crimes but there are a large number of people that
strongly disagree with that claim. How could such a horrible crime not be
considered a hate crime? And the question that lingers is would those same five
people have done the same thing to a black couple? No one will ever know for
sure except for those five murderers. In my personal opinion, I would
definitely call this a hate crime considering the horrific and gruesome
details.
Although
racism is a problem that has been around forever and has affected the way that
people think of others based on their race and although we know that it will be
quite some time before it completely disappears all together, if we all decide
to change the way we think and act
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on a personal level,
there will be a change. We may not be able to change the color of our skin and
we can’t change the color of anyone else’s skin but what we can do is change
the way we think and how we look at the person underneath the skin. This has
been an issue for so long now, that I can’t imagine anything more refreshing
than living in a world where skin color isn’t the first thing we notice about a
person and doesn’t define who they are to themselves nor anybody else; a world
where we won’t have to hear horrible stories about people being beat severely
because of where they come from or what they look like; a world where everyone
has the privilege to be proud of who they are; a world where no one is ashamed
of where they come from; a world where speaking your mind won’t hurt someone
else’s feelings; a world where having your own opinion won’t get you into trouble;
a world where everyone can live in peace. Sounds nice doesn’t it?
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Works Cited
The case of Nadin Khoury and Intra-Racial
Bullying by Charing Ball
Race Based Hate Crimes, the UCR and the NCVS
by Eugene Volokh
The Torture Murders of Channon Christian and
Chris Newsom by Bryan Lavietes
Racist Bullying in School by Nadra
Kareem Nittle
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