From Personal to Political

¶ … Personal to Politics

Impacts of Racial Discrimination on American Society

The difference between white and black is centuries old. There were times when Nigers were considered as slaves, then there were times when they were declared free but I still believe that deep down the white culture lies the black foundation. Being a racist on the basis of skin color is nothing new in American culture. I was once a strong believer of discriminating on the basis of skin color but time proved me wrong and showed me how wrong I was and how humanity is above everything, every culture, every color, every race.

I had a friend with the name Dean, black guy from Nigeria. His parents shifted in New york long time but used to visit their home town very often. We spent almost our whole childhood together. Those were the good days when we were completely innocent and were happy in celebrating our differences. Then came the dark age of my life. We went to the same high school. Well, when one is talking about teenage, being overwhelmed and controlled by hormones and the urge of being accepted is nothing unusual. I experienced a similar experience. I became with friends with few white guys who had very strong beliefs about being superior to the colored people. The desire of being accepted and being part of the popular gang in the school was so overwhelming that I couldn't help being friends with them.

It wasn't easy ignoring the humanity call inside me every time I used to give absurd and humiliating names to colored people around. A part of me was dying every day and from an innocent kid I was turning into the monster who feels that being self righteous and racist is the way to go.

This attitude even made me hurt my friend. I abandoned him completely, not to mention, the guy I grew up with. Even worse, I used to call him abusive names, fill his locker with shoe polish and every insulting thing that I could think of. This behavior made me one of the main guys in the gang. With every passing day, I was forgetting who I was and the difference between being a beast and a human.

Till one day, I was shaken to my roots. It was one of our school days. Me and gang as usual skipped our classes and were hanging around and we found Dean getting out of the washroom. And that's where the episode of unlimited pain started. The guys knew that I would do anything to save him from whatever their intentions were so they sent me out to grab some drinks. And in my absence, they grabbed Dean and took him to the rooftop. By the time I got there, Dean was all beaten up and covered in his own blood. And worst of all, I saw him dropping on the floor. I ran towards him and held his badly bleeding body. When the guys saw the friend inside me overcoming that monster that I was few seconds back, they ran away leaving me with the half dead guy. And right there, on that roof top, Dean died in my arms. All those years we spent together just flew in front of my eyes. And I felt this excruciating pain of guilt deep inside my gut.

Of course, I testified against those boys and got them what they deserved but I couldn't forgive myself for making all those people suffer. Every passing minute was making me feel that his blood was on my sleeves. And the worst part was, the pain and the guilt didn't go away, it chose to stay, for a very long time. Even today, after years, I couldn't get out of that rut hole where the darkness of guilt resides.

It's not just me. It's the story of a lot of people out there whose loved ones were burnt in the fire they lit themselves.

Racism is a disease which makes the foundation of society weak and makes it really feeble. This inhuman attitude has its foundation attached to the apartheid policy which was born in 1948 in South Africa. When Boer National Party took over and made South Africa a utopia for whites. That of course included throwing them out of their own land or abusing them. Since then until now, our history is loaded with millions of examples of racial discrimination against colored people. It not only limits to black people but includes discrimination on the basis of caste and religion as well.

Ethnic minorities have been provided with fundamental rights in constitutions of every country but deep down in the cultural heritage lies down the bits of racial discrimination. It usually starts with the way we are brought up and treated during our adolescence. In my case, I was taught to celebrate the individuals around me and there uniqueness and celebrate my differences with them. It was the peer pressure during my teen years that made me watch my friend die in front of me.

Racism has a tendency of turning normal human into beasts. There was a quote coined by Abraham Haschel, a Jewish philosopher in 1969 which always appears in my mind when I think about it; "Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason."

He was right when he said that we were paying a huge price for a little ego boosts to our empty selves. We are putting the whole social order in danger. As human, we have this social obligation to give other human the same respect we hope to get for ourselves. Also we need to believe that the creator doesn't make mistakes so in one way or another, we are all the best creations of his. Friedrich Otto Hertz puts it beautifully, "At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being"

Once we are born, we are given complete right of living our lives facing no detest of others no matter what. Imagine how the black folks would feel when they feel in the disgust in the eyes of white people. Nelson Mandela explains it rather well in his own words, "I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a White man's court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and at home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice."