racism

                                                                       

                                                          RACISM       

                        

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

In a world with different skin, hair, noses, and just appearance in general, Racism is a big part of it. People in every ethnic background make racist statements about each other, such as blacks to white and Hispanics to blacks, so on and so forth. Racism is not even a word; Human kind has invented this even though all these ethnic groups are from the same species-Homo sapiens. This is a reasonable statement which the majority of the world has not even stopped to consider.

The word Racism started to make its first manifestation in the early twentieth century but the idea that a certain group of people are superiors than other has been around in the word for an extensive time. For example in 15 century and 16 century the African populations were considered to be lower than any race and the Europeans use them as slaves. Even before that when the Egyptians use the Jewish population as slaves to help them build their famous pyramids with their hard unpaid manual labor. In the late twentieth century when the United States start to segregate other nations around the world still had the same crisis. One of the worst racist events against any ethnic group situated in Europe to be accurate in Germany beneath the command of Hitler; slaughtering millions of Jews, Gypsies, and Catholics.

Effects of racism against ethnic groups can cause many social and political conflicts. In some cases this actions have even brought the ethnic groups to be paid lower than others of different societies because of their religion, appearance or nationalities. They’re even put to do higher risk jobs because no one else would. In example like the Immigrants that pass through a journey to get to the United States to get a healthier life, they have to work with being paid small quantities of money for a high risk or Unpleasant job that the citizen of the country are unwilling to do. Racism brings harms to others physically or emotionally in many ways: Self hate can be causes of racism were the person might dislike for his/her qualities. Suicides also are affected by racism, if their constantly mocked this can lead to depressions, suicidal thoughts and then death. Racial problems may also cause ethnic groups attack against someone or another certain ethnic group they consider worthless or bellow themselves. Some even develop eating disorder because of verbal abuse that has affected him/her. Others take the anger and frustration becoming bullies and racist themselves. These thing help develop Ethnic hatred between each other and discrimination arise from these events.

Recent events have shown that race is a topic that has been long overdue. Communities around the world have taken to social media and the streets to protest the unlawful, unjust treatment that occurs to individuals based on race, and it is important to realize the factors at play. The United States has a deep history of racism and oppression, and while some progress has been made, explicit and implicit racism still exist. Angela Davis said it best when she said, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be antiracist”. Deconstructing implicit biases, matters are steps that you can take towards being an active advocate against preconceived notions about race, and working to educate yourself on relevant racial injustice.

The U.S. presidential elections will soon kick start and this time it is going to be a big deal. The pandemic has accurately checked the efficacy of the governments and the U.S. is already having the maximum number of COVID cases in the world. Further, to top this, President Donald Trump’s statements about the virus and the situation have drawn a lot of controversies.

Another issue which is going to be highly influential on voter’s decision this time is the whole George Floyd incident and the Anti-race movement. The ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests gained momentum in not only the United States but the whole world. People, as well as many governments across different countries, came forth against the prevalence of racial discrimination worldwide.

In India, people took to social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter to show their support. However, the irony here to notice is that how people, just because of the social pressure, became a part of the protest and showered their support for George Floyd. Whereas on the other hand, the same pre-set of color and racial discrimination are deeply embedded in their society, yet they never spoke about it.

In India, the obsession for “White” skin tone is real. People drooling over a ‘fair’ skin tone is visible in the matrimonial ads. Not only this, but the use and popularity of whitening creams have been there in India since years, yet no one took cognizance of such products that advocate color bias. Following the anti-race protests, many brands decided to change the names of their products. But that alone is not going to solve the problem. Kavitha Emmanuel, the woman behind ‘Dark is Beautiful’ Campaign told The Week that “changing names is not going to be enough to undo the damage, done in the past 45 years”. She further proposes for the discontinuation of such products so that more and more women, irrespective of color, can get empowered.

Racism has multiple concepts; Many types of racism. Racism has a cause and effect. Discrimination, oppression, violence, intimidation are some of them. While racism between races are able to happened because of their difference in cultural, heritage, language, ideas and historical factors. Individual racism is an intentional n the part of the perpetrator to injure or harm another because of perceived racial difference. The lynching of blacks by KKK is an example of individual racism. Institutional racism evolves when racial oppression and inequality are at the norm in a society those attitudes subsequently permeate the various legal, educational, and economic institution, creating a system that directly or indirectly excludes or discriminates against, members of one or another racial or ethnic community.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race- scientifically and anthropologically. 

                                                                                                              DIVISHA BHARDWAJ