Posted 18 March 2011 - 04:32 PM
Debates like this go around for days. I was talking to my roommate last night who got a girl fired @ Applebee's the other night while we were at dinner. I won't go into the story because it's not important. What's important is that he considered her racist because she made some remark about asking the fellow bartender to use his asian calculation skills to help her with her ticket. I think that's a compliment to asian people as well as to the fellow bartender (who was white not asian).There was no hate accept by my roommate who asked the girl what nationality do you think I am? (Ok I'm gonna paraphrase the story). She asked "African American?" He said "I ain't never been to Africa a day in my life! I'm american!" Then he proceeded to tell me that she was a racist (the female was white by the way). I don't know about you but the person who seems racist in the scenario seems to be my roommate. He told the manager that she asked if he was African and the manager fired her on the spot (I walked aut before knowing the nationality of the manager).
I hate to say it but I agree with a previous statement about predominantly black neighborhoods being run down or crime ridden. This a stereotype that I have found to be true in the cases where I have been. In Fayetteville, NC in the areas that are predominantly black are low income, high crime areas. Now, everyone has a choice. No one has to live in an area like that. If you hang out with people like that you are going to become like people like that. However, if you are from a bad background, monitarily speeking, you can change it by changing your habits and your surroundings. Join the army or something. That is the easiest way to get out of your bad area. Now, not all neighborhoods that are low income are bad. I grew up in a low income neighborhood in California that was predominantly White and Hispanic. It was a great neighborhood. People were friendly, neighbors stopped to talk, people were generally nice to one another. I'm not saying it's because it was a white or hispanic neighborhood, I'm only stating that it was a good neighborhood and those were the demographics.
Now, descrimination and stereotyping will never leave because they are part of human nature. The brain uses these things to help with mental catagorization. If you saw a chevy van and you thought "man those things always look run down, have high emmissions and have no power" and you drove around it because you didn't want to get stuck behind a vehicle that is going to smoke you out of your car, you are stereo typing and descriminating. However, if you saw one that looked clean, quiet and was in perfect running condition it would take you by surprise because it doesn't fit your past encounters with these types of vans. Your brain processes this and say's "Well, it's not 100% right but there aren't enough filing cabinets in here to file this completely differently from the others.... so I'll just file it with the others and change the heading to 'almost 100%'"
Now, Racism is simply a catagorization that says that one race of people has different characteristics, abilities, socioeconomic status, etc. This thought process happens all the time. How about when people think "Man the US is the best country in the world because we have X, Y and Z! We're better than other countries so we must bring these things like capatalism to other counries so that they are not crappy any more" Sound Familiar? Now prejudice is 1:aversive or hostile attitude toward a person who belongs to a group, simply because he belongs to that group, and is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities ascribed to that group. 2:injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one's rights. This sounds like our country as a whole. If it wasn't going on on a gobal scale it wouldn't be going on on a local scale and visa versa.
If anything in this post bothers you, good. It's meant to. It's meant to be a wake up call that no one is without decrimination or stereotype. Even racism and prejudice are common. Martin Luther King, Jr faught peacefully for what he knew was right. He was an upstanding citizen BEFORE he did it, though. He always acted with respect to others, strength in conviction and his presentation was always done with proper english with proper pronunciation. No slang or ebonics or draw. People sound uneducated when they use any of these things in speech; white, black, mexican, asian, etc all included. You want someone to treat you equally than earn it don't try to bring people down to your level to get something, come up to thiers and they will treat you as an equal no matter what nationality you are in most cases. There, I've said it.
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cant even catch the ball.
