Racism’s Echo: A Lost Morality
Because of this, I want you all to remember love. The flesh that we share, the world we all have to live in. We are a singular united person just put into different bodies. You have blood on your hands when you discriminate against your brethren.
We sometimes treat life as a courtroom. Choosing who we want to judge. As if we ourselves have the power to judge, as if we ourselves are more superior than another. Whether good or bad, judging someone for any matter of race, ethnicity and not looking back at ourselves and seeing how we can be judged is the epitome of lacking love for the people around us.
The problem with racism is that it makes us forget who we are, where we came from, and our authority in the space around us. We start wanting to be things that we are not because we're tired of being who we are. Such a beautiful diverse society rampaged by neglect and confusion. When we are all confused about who to be, it leads to war, a war of who controls the most power and what they are willing to do to hold on to it. We all want to be everything but equal. This power dynamic blinds us from having love and compassion in our hearts for other people. From accepting who we are individually and collectively.
Outside of not having the proper knowledge of racism there are a few whose hearts are blackened by hate and fueled from the whispers of the past. A few whose sense of justice has been ensnared by the vines of injustice done unto them and or their people. For example, I know a lot of black people carry the fire of their ancestors with them. They died with chains never broken and passed a weight that can never be forgotten. Discrimination and slavery placed upon men and women of dark coated skin and the oppression that still to this day can never leave.
It doesn’t seem outlandish for someone of color to hate white individuals in general. To despise their being and their “wrong doings” towards their race. But what we struggle to let go of is the past that is engulfing the light from our hearts and distorting it into resentment. The hands stained with blood are the same hands stained with blood. One man's wrong isn't a nationwide crime. I only say that to say we are being judgmental and down right disrespectful to people who were just born white or born Mexican and have nothing to do with their ancestor’s mishaps or who they even chose to be born as. We throw logic out the window, blinded by the past that we make people despise their heritage and the gift of life! Making them feel like they were born unlucky or an accident! You may not have killed them with your hands but your actions tore them apart!
This is the main problem of racism itself. You forget who you and other people are. We became a people that is so quick to judge and so slow to think about the impacts that we make to others through our actions. The society we live in is very judgmental and criticizes you for any and everything. The use of technology makes it easier to persecute a race and slander their culture. Better yet we've grown so accustomed to this that we sit and smile at it through a screen and simply scroll away when we're done. Will you forever be a follower of this tangled society or will you be willing to change the culture of this generation?
We talk a lot about racism from the perspective of black people being discriminated against. But we forget that people of color can turn the pain of racism into something violent, as well. Born with resentment for their own skin color, they grow up acting like something they are not because they were taught that who they are just isn't privileged or good enough. It’s also because of the past they hold on to. Their pain causes the need for retaliation or revenge to people whose records are held clean. They are blinded by the past and stuck in it at the same time. We need to see what's in front of us, not what our ancestors worked so hard to free us from.
Racism is not always a direct intentional action; it is also a part of the way we live out our lives. There's a plethora of plain and ordinary ways that racism is shown in our society, such as the way some of us talk to each other and how that affects how future generations talk and think. A lot of us don’t harm through actions but rather through our tongues. The power of speech is very powerful, and I can personally say I have learned a lot through what I have heard other people say. This is detrimental because in our society a lot of us speak with a type of normalization on racism. We say jokes that are racially motivated and ethnically targeted, and as that may not be something harmful with you and your friends, think about the younger ones whose minds are still fresh and new. The sponges of the earth that take in what they hear and store it.
I have heard young kids, toddlers, say the N-word to people. Young kids that go to elementary school and become bullies to kids that don’t know the past of their own race. I have wondered why they are being discriminated against and have grown up to despise who they are. Where would the youth learn such type of behavior? From the few ignorant, hard hearted individuals who can’t even be mature enough to show anyone what being mature even looks like.
We want racism to stop, yet we don’t take the precautions not to let it pass on to the future generations. A well watered tree will have roots that spread. We keep planting seeds of injustice and helping them grow, watching idly as our society gets more entangled in the roots.
As a people we need to take a stand and be leaders for once. If we truly want racism to stop we need to be the example of what that should look like. A lot of us say it is hurting our society yet we still perpetuate it and do nothing about it. Do we really care enough to change how we live our lives so that the cycle of racism doesn't have to continue? Or will we let our potentially beautiful kaleidoscopic society be transformed to a world where love is just an option no one decides to choose?
Because of this, I want you all to remember love. The flesh that we share, the world we all have to live in. We are a singular united person just put into different bodies. You have blood on your hands when you discriminate against your brethren. We are a family not by blood but by a brain and beating heart. To dehumanize someone is to strip them of everything they are, and I'm positive you wouldn't want that done to you. Especially because of a past you're not acquainted with or associated with.
Until we can come to terms with treating everyone with respect, not forgetting about the past but pushing it to the side to make room for care and love in our hearts, we will never be the society that we truly claim we want to be. We will be killing our people and choking our society with a vine that won't be loosened.