Reflection 13

Reflection #13: Reflect on what you’ve learned about race and racism.
The only purpose of racism is to dehumanize and oppress other groups and cultures whose only hope is to be good citizens, serve their community or country and provide for their families. I am amazed at the fact that everyone came to this country- the new world - on the premise of religion and other unalienable rights they were being denied and now other cultures are coming for the same reasons and are being discriminated against. I suppose somewhere along the line, the temptation of being on top so to speak took over. Racism is under the broad umbrella of chauvinism and oppression as I view these terminologies to mean the same. Chauvinism as it pertains to racism has several characteristics. One is the superiority factor – the belief that their race is better or above all others. This was clearly identified with Hitler and Nazi Germany which led to the Holocaust. Many of the countries that practice Genocide are guilty of this as well. Another characteristic is the belief that other ethnic groups are strange. They think that they should be feared and avoided. In other words, they should not interact with them and they have no business occupying their land. These groups that deem themselves to be superior feel that they should be entitled to special privileges just because of who they are. They fuel their cause on the premise that foreign groups will try to take control and siege their power. Racist people also believe that if they do gain power it will be misused I find this statement to be very ironic as they fail to see that this is exactly what they are doing. Racism denies power and it also handicaps the receiving of resources. This happens in employment practices, banking/mortgage industry, healthcare, childcare, education and assisted services. Finally racism denies position in society for a member or the entire ethnic group on a whole. Many times people or groups of people that feel they are superior will turn to violent behavior. Some are very blatant and is called overt individual racial violence. These people that carry out such acts believe that the law is on their side and they do not have to deny or hide the crime. There were many of these instances in the south during the civil rights movement. I believe the main driving forces of racism are fear and ignorance. Our nation has taken measures to rectify racism and hold those accountable to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, much work still needs to be done to cleanse our world from racism. One can only hope that with the evolution of man and paradigm shifts that racism will absolve itself.