FLAW IN THE SOCIETY : RACISM

Race is a significant social issue because people use racial differences as the basis for discrimination. Its sad to say that racial discrimination is taboo in this 21-st century.  Much of today's racism can be traced to the era of colonialism that began in the 1400s. When Europeans began colonizing Africa and the Americas, the white settlers adopted the idea that they were superior to the other races they encountered and it was their job to "civilize the savages." This false notion became known as "the white man's burden," and was used to justify the Europeans' taking land and enslaving people. In this way, naturally-occurring racial differences became the basis for systems of exploitation and discrimination. What equality can we achieve from such a manner?

And while the World Wide Web and social media are great mediums for the ideals of free speech, and where you’re actually given a say about the current global issues, it can also be a breeding ground harboring hatred hence, forming a kind of people in  the society who judge people by the colour of your skin, and the culture you we raised up with.  This is very serious as the number of hate sites that have sprung up in the recent years is shocking and also increasing at an alarming rate. Hatred and discrimination is surprisingly considered as a trend nowadays. It’s somehow okay, to be walking out on the streets, and point a gun to a coloured man when in reality all the man did was smile at your daughter. 

A film  was made to spread a clear view on how racism works in the United States of America.

The Help is a 2011 American drama film directed and written by Tate Taylor, and adapted from Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of the same name. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film is about a young white woman, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, and her relationship with two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson during Civil Rights era America (the early 1960s). Skeeter is a journalist who decides to write a book from the point of view of the maids (referred to as "the help"), exposing the racism they are faced with as they work for white families. The film provides, a clear perspective of the trouble the coloured people had to face during that specific era.

Racism is often taught mostly depending on who raised you and to whom you have exposure, communicate and socialize with in your every day life. You can change those ideas to some extent, you can also make a change in yourself an in the eye of the people who look down on coloured people, but if you grew up thinking that people of another race are inferior to you, and they can harm you in any way possible, then that idea might be very hard to eradicate. It can be quite sub-conscious, so you wouldn't necessarily be aware that you think of racism that way.

Children nowadays are being educated to stay away from coloured people and to always look at coloured people in such a manner that may cause social conflicts. We can’t really blame them. Probably they were trained to think in that way. But as you grow older, and you become more exposed to the subject you’ll tend to look into the matter and rationalize it with humanity and only then can you see how racial discrimination can destroy someone or even the who

How do we stop racism?

In our personal point of view, this is entirely possible but only time can tell. But as good Samaritans we ought to see the positive side of it. As a famous saying goes “Rome was not built in a day”. Thus proving, total abolishment isn’t possible, but reduction is. Several methods or initiatives could be taken to help solve the situation. For example, since the internet plays such a dominant role, one can start up a blog and share how unity is a better way of life to live in and how discrimination can hurt.