Difference in Opinion
Maybe I’m nuts for wanting to write about this subject, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It’s amazing that I grew up not caring about the color of someones skin, or where they were born, or just what their families ethnic background was or for that matter what their religious beliefs were. I grew up hearing both of my grandfathers and my own father use very non-pc (politically correct) terms when referring to someone of another race. Fortunately, I grew up believing the opposite. Ironically, one of my grandfathers had a fair amount of Native American in him (apparently my blood is a bit diluted because I didn’t get that wonderful darker skin that he had, I find it disappointing by the way).
So what got me on thinking about this subject? Well, I have lately found myself talking to more and more people online while playing poker who are both outside of the USA and who are of different ethnic backgrounds. Warning…yep, I’m gonna at some point do a blog about playing poker…and in a way it will relate back to this blog. I have met some really amazing people who are incredibly fun to talk with. I have met some incredibly racist people as well. And of course, there are the in between folks, they aren’t racist (or didn’t appear to be) but they are a bit less talkative.
I’m not at all naive, I mean I grew up in the big melting pot of the USA where we have people of every skin color, religion and intellectual background that there could possibly be. Personally, I think that this is one of the thing that makes the US what it is..a melting pot. But recently I got a taste of racism that dropped even my jaw…it happend twice actually. First case was when I was talking with someone who lives in Beirut, Lebanon (lol…that’s for those folks who forgot where that was). He asked me if I was sure I wanted to talk too him. I was a bit stumped, my only question was “why wouldn’t I??”, his reply “because I am an Arab man who lives in Lebanon”. Still…my brain only said “why would you think this?”, his reply….’because American’s think all Lebanese are terrorists’. Immediately my heart sank to my feet, all I could tell him was that I didn’t care where he was from. Am I odd? Seriously….I look at each individual person and base my feelings towards them on their individual merit. Only thing I could say really was that saying that every Lebanese was a terrorist is about the same as saying that every Catholic Priest is a child molester. In other words…I found it absurd. He now understands that I don’t assume that he is a bad person because of what country he is from.
Now, the other thing I encountered was what both disgusted me, and had me flat out furious as time when on. I decided to play a friendly game of poker one day. Joined a table thru my Facebook account, and well..okay I admit..I’m a chatty person. I know, I know…you could already tell that. So I see this one person at the ‘virtual table’ who is shown as Privacy Blocked, meaning they didn’t want anyone to see who they were or know their name. Okay, so being a bit ‘playful’, I say something like “Hey Privacy Blocked, so what’s your name?”, no answer….so I say, again just being ‘playful’ “ok…I’m just going to call you PB”. Didn’t take me long to realize that the person I was being ‘playful’ with was a hardcore racist. Started out with this guy making comments about another person who was playing and they were just rude. Okay, I don’t like rudeness, it annoys me. I was also in a bit of a mood, so I added my 2 cents (which by the time I was done was more like my $100’s worth). The picture of me on my facebook page at the time was a black and white one of me as a little kid. ‘PB’ called me a ’stinking Paki’. Now, just the night before I had been chatting with a friend in Mumbai about the racist encounter he had that day…funny…he had been called the same thing. I laughed and informed ‘PB’ that my ethnic background is actually German, Native American, Scottish (and technically I should have added Norweigian as well). Out of that what do you think ‘PB’ recalled….yep…you guessed it..the Native American part. So for the next however long it was I had to hear how horrible Native American’s are. He HAD to pick the part of my heritage that I’m most proud of didn’t he. I have Souix Indian in my blood, granted that Souix blood in me is so diluted by the rest of my family heritage that you would never know it to look at me….but I’m still very proud to say that I have Souix blood in me. According to ‘PB’ us ‘natives’ aren’t worth much. It’s pointless to go into everything this person had to say, because honestly, I’d mute him when I got bored listening to him. He got on everyones nerves really. But it was just unbelieveable that someone could be so incredibly racist. It took every bit of willpower in me to NOT call this guy a Neo-Nazi Skinhead. Honestly, I didn’t know I had that kind of willpower in me (now if only I could harness that same willpower when I want chocolate).
I really don’t understand racism, in any form really. How is it possible to hate someone because of the color of their skin, or what their religion is, or what country they were born in, or whether they are rich or poor, or how they dress. I know that most feel that racism has to do with ’skin color’, but really…there are so many different forms of it. I still remember working as a manager of a small clothing store. The owner was for the most part a good man. I had customers who came in that worked in all walks of life, all colors of skin, etc… One day the owner paid me a visit and while he was there one of my favorite (and best) customers came in to get some shirts. He had gotten off of work and was still in his work clothes…which were quite dirty and torn. The owner looked at him with a bit of disgust. I helped my customer who was offended by the way my boss was looking at him, and he opted to come back that weekend to make his purchase. On a later visit this same customer came by to show me his new ‘toy’…and his pride and joy. He pulled up in front of my store in his 1938 Cord. It was pristine and this particular one was worth $250K. This man had money, financially he was worth more than my then boss was, but was treated badly because of how he was dressed. Yes, this IS racism, just a different form of it. I have seen people treated poorly because of their age as well.
Why is it that people assume that if you are young you are ‘up to no good’, if you are African American that you are a ‘gangster’ or a ‘thief’, if you are Middle Eastern that you are a terrorist, if you are a man with long hair that you are a drug addict (lol…my friends who are musicians will laugh at that one I’m sure),if you are overweight you must eat a lot, if you are ______ that you are ______ (fill in your own example here). I mean really. We need to start being more aware of the stereotypes that we give people because honestly, those stereotypes are a form of racism. Do you want to be thought of as a racist? Is that something to be proud of? I certainly don’t think so, I think it’s something to be ashamed of. Never ASSume that you know something about someone because of the color of their skin, or the way they speak, or their weight, or how they dress, etc….because you know what happens when you assume something…right?
I could go on but I won’t. I hope that we can learn to teach the children today and tomorrow to look at the person’s heart and who they really are rather than what we physically can see on the outside.
I welcome any thoughts on this subject so feel free to leave your comments. …however… Please be constructive with your thoughts, and check the racism at the door.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Reality of Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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