Blog 1, Racism

People are subjected to racist remarks and actions everyday, yet most of us don't even stop to think about it. My views on colored people are pretty straitght forward: theres no difference made by skin color or heritage. A person is a person no matter how they may look or where they are from, or even where their ancestors came from. Regardless, the golden rule applys to everyone. While reading Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher, every time Rich made some sort of inapropriate comment of some kind or another, I felt an urge to whack him with a lead pipe. ;) Illegal this may be, but its what he deserves. As well, who tells their child, even it they are an adopted child, to scrub the skin off their own arm?! Come on! And whats sad about that is people actually tell their children stuff like that, and the poor kids do it just beacuse 'daddy said so', or, 'momma will love me if i do what she says'. Messing with someone's mind is worse than beating their body. If someone really starts to believe that they are what someone else tells them they are, they have no spirit left. They are broken in body or mind, possibly both, and can easily be pushed around by the one guilty of making them that way. Making someone believe that they are lower on the pecking order just because of their skin color is a crime: it's stealing anothers soul.

Now I'm going to steer away from the issues the book focuses on. Perhaps some of the dislike we see comes from parents. If a young child hears their parents talking about other races in a bad way, they may be prone to pick up on their parents beliefs and not stop to think about it themselves. An example: Yes, illegal immegrants aren't the best, just because someone is Mexican doesn't mean that they are an illeagal immegrant, so there's no reason to distain them or hold back in getting to know them. (no offense people, I just needed an example)

I have a few ideas about how perhaps Racism came into play. First I'd just like to get it out there, JUST BECAUSE IM SAYING THIS DOESN'T MEAN I NECISSARILY BELIEVE IT!!!!! JUST KNOW THAT!!! In mideval times, black was assiciated with evil and the devil. White was associated with God and heaven. Perhaps mideval Europeans concidered people with darker skin devil-spawn. (SOOO NOT TRUE! JUST STATING MY THEORY!) Therefor the would assume that they were better because they had a more 'holy' color. Natives were often concidered heretics, and this leads me to think that maybe this is how racism got a hold. And second, I think most Europeans hadn't ever seen anybody with any color skin other than white. Perhaps it was just a new concept for them, and they really couldn't, or didn't want to, accept them as equals. And then the Atlantic Slave Trade came into play. Continuing on with my theory, once African Americans gained freedom, they were still looked down on. And that part is NOT a theory. It's written all over the Civil Rights movment America went through in the 1950's. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, all of them were fighting against 'seperate but equal.' I would like to know too: how can two men be equal if they are kept seperate? Especially if one is looked down on, and has to deal with the hand me downs of the other man. Answer me that, KKK!!!!! And that, too. White people in the 1950's didn't have the Koo Klux Klan on their tail every day. What they did was cruel, and the very definition of racism. Taunting, torturing, and even killing someone just because of their race, religion, and/or skin color. NOT cool. Aaaaand those are my views on the racist issues presented in Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher. I really didn't think this was possible, but I completed a full page blog! Horray!!! *blows party noise maker and throws confetti*