Friday 19 July 2013

The True Meaning of Racism

Good morning, good evening, good...whatever it is. I hope life is going on brilliantly for all of you...I hope life is not as trashy as it should be.

Today, I am tempted to touch a very sensitive matter and right now it is touch and go because the fact is Trayvon Martin was a victim of the system and the prosecution team's inadequacy. It clearly resembles the O. J. Simpson matter as regards the arguments of the prosecution team.

However, despite all of this, I want to ask what is racism? Someone says it is based on hierarchy. Another says you have to bring in slavery. But let us be objective; start with the meaning. Racism is hostile or oppressive behavior towards 'people' because they belong to a different race. Key word being people. I think the number of races in the world is more than the two we are so keen to identify. The races are not black or white. They are more than that...5 if my research is right and these are; Mongoloid (Asian and American Indian), Caucasoid (European), Australoid (Australian and oceanic), Negroid (east African black), Capoid (south African black). I wonder where the black and white distinction came in.

As regards slavery, the African chiefs at times willingly participated in it for exchange of goods. True the Arabs raided the interior from time to time but if we really wanted, we could have beaten the shit out of those arses and sent them back to the coast. We cowered away and let them take us.  Now that right there is what I would call one race attacking another. And to be fair the arabs had exhausted themselves as a source of slaves to trade they expanded. It was not right but they did.

Sorry, it seems I am going off topic but anyway to the point. I doubt that it is fair for me a lad straight from Africa to say something degrading against a white man. I believe that is racist but according to some of the people I have discussed this with, it is not because, the white man is apparently in a place above me on the hierarchy. Seriously people, seriously...how can that not be racist.

I think it is us being hypocritical. Racism should not be about the white looking down on the black. What of the blacks who slur at the whites? What of people saying crap to a white man because of his skin? This doesn't make sense.

I am sure there are many examples of racism in the reverse. True, the black are the most affected, true we are the ones that cry out loudest against it but does it mean we should also partake in it. My argument might be weak but at least I hope there is some sense in it, deep down. There should be some high ground that we should all adhere to.

Racism is not about hierarchy it is about the people. If an Indian slams on the African, if an African shits on the Caucasian, if the Caucasian pisses on the face of the Afro-Arab...all that is racism. It is not about the white vs black. It is about the people. Racism should be what it is defined as in the dictionary not what we feel it should be because if it is what we think it should be (white vs black and vice versa) then we are being hypocrites. Every fucking soul deserves respect...right from the Mongoloid to the Negroid...

Just so you know, I am not defending the white systems. I am an African really bothered by the whole African and African-American view of racism. I am just being objective...if you've noticed what I have just said sounds racist.I do not believe that I am entitled to say something offensive to another person because my skin tone puts me far down the hierarchical ladder. It is racism through out and we should not take it for granted...just because of social conventions.

No poems for today...this is a very sensitive matter to all of us.

My skin is my skin,
but my heart is not my skin,
my mind was molded out of my wit,
be I black, be I white, be I brown,
I am more than what you see,
I am a person...

Until the next time, I remain your carefree dream chaser...

Keep chasing you dreams and avoid the hypocrisy that is our world as best you can....

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