Daniel Yang: Racism

There is a movie about a cute blond girl with a perfect white complexion. In fact, she is the daughter of black woman. Even though she has been brought up with an ultimate motherly affection, she can’t accept her as a mother. She has never called her mom at the presence of others. One day, she refuses to introduce her mother to her classmates when her black mother comes to school to give her an umbrella due to the sudden raining. She is not only ashamed of her black mother but also terrified of her being treated as not a pure white. This is a sad story. We know that the deepest love on Earth is the affection between a mother and a young child. As we see, racism ruins a great love. The causes of racism are both innate and learned.

Racism is innate. Firstly, people are born with the prejudice of racism. Experiments conducted by Dr. Frances Aboud of Mcgill University provide scientific evidence. Her report proves that a two-year-old baby can discriminate the pedestrians on the street by their skin colors. Moreover, Nazism may be an example of innate racism. Nazis were confident that Germans are superior to any other race. They wanted to realize and prove their dream. Secondly, homogeneous societies are rife with racism. The people living with same race and same skin color tend to show racism. Those people feel uncomfortable to mingle with different kinds of people. They are concerned that different kinds of people may assault them, so they are defensive and exclusive. What is more, same religious groups have chronic racism, denying the other religions. Many wars between religions have been going on until now over the globe. As of today, religion is the most serious cause of racism, while other causes are relatively weakening.

Racism is learned, too. Firstly, people learn it from their families, societies and even schools. Many people express racism in many ways unconsciously. Some parents talk about their biased experiences in their work places in front of their children repeatedly. Homogeneous neighbors tell careless racial jokes, holding their children’s hands. Even at school, some teachers and senior pupils use careless words implying racial discrimination. The children, as a result, learn it very naturally, spreading prejudice. It contaminates other children very quickly. Besides, children copy the behaviors of adults easily. If children find that a teacher praises the children of specific race more, they would react with prejudice. Secondly, Mass media propagate racism publicly. Dramas and films stereotype most of drug addicts as coming from specific races. They influence us to be the stereo typed. Besides, news focuses racial issues to attract more popularity. They pretend to accuse racism but sometimes worsen it.

We name these days “the global era”. We can fly anywhere in the world in a day. We live on Earth rather than in a country. We can communicate with each other at any time. Even though the times have changed a lot, we keep racism in our minds. This causes fighting between peoples and wars between countries and regions. We need to run systematic education programs to abolish racism. We have to launch universal campaign claiming no differences between races. The leaders should declare “no more racism”. Mass Medias have to be more careful to deliver the message of “no bias”. Everybody should understand that no racism brings a peace to our world.