What does it mean to be a racist? This is another tough question but I believe to be a racist you would need to feel like you are superior to other different cultures. Being a racist involves some hate or disrespect for another culture also. I believe that being racist is always a negative label.
After watching the link for Racism in America, I wasn’t impressed with either side of the interviewee and interviewer and the secretary. They were all just fueling the situation. The secretary and the interviewer both made the situation more awkward by pointing out that the guy was colored and they wouldn’t let it drop. I thought it was kind of smart that the man being interviewed turned the tables on the interviewer by playing the racist card, but it was also a form of blackmail. I didn’t really like the fact that he was falling into the stereotypes by saying he would call up his cousin who was not so well spoken and threatening the interviewer. That really didn’t help fighting the stereotypes that the interviewer and secretary were putting on him.
I don’t think that if we laugh at racist jokes that it means that we are racist. I have laughed at all kinds of jokes but it doesn’t mean that I believe or support what their punch line is. There are many jokes that I laugh and cringe at at the same time because they make me feel uneasy depending on who’s around when they are told. I think that movies are created for our entertainment and though they are not real, we watch them to keep entertained. Jokes are like this too, sometimes we know they are just to laugh and we don’t need to support the message behind them.
With the Native Americans they were talking about how they were getting thrown in prison a lot in Minnesota because half of the inmates were Natives. That is sad to me, because white people already forced them into their reservations and now they are locking them up a lot too. I’m not saying that it was always unjustified; it’s just odd that there are so many locked up and half are Natives. The natives aren’t the only ones being discriminated against being put in jail there are other races that are targeted also it seems like. It is unfair that they are targeted at all.
Racism and discrimination go hand in hand. Racism leads to discrimination, because the hate leads to separation of cultures. Then just like the link showed, people try to overcorrect for the racism by being too friendly and making the situation awkward and asking too many questions.
It’s going to be tough to call the United States the melting pot of the world when we are continually being racist in our country. It is something that will take a lot of time to extinguish since we are making such slow progress trying to get rid of racism.
After reading your post I think we have a lot of the same ideas. A lot of these questions are very hard to answer. You had a good example with your comments on laughing at racist jokes. I really didn’t think about the idea of laughing because you were that uneasy. I do like that you acknowledge the whole point of entertainment such as jokes and movies are meant to entertain. Even if the joke is horrible and you didn’t agree with it, it still made you laugh which was their intent. I can see this as being a valid point but at the same time I have a hard time seeing racist jokes as positive. I have talked in my blog about how we can’t move on unless we leave these stereotypes and jokes behind. Do you see laughing at these jokes even if you don’t agree with them as a way they are holding our country back at being more united? I also agreed with you about your views on discrimination and racism. They are very much closely related. You made a very good point about having a hard time calling the United States a melting pot if we continue to be racist. I think its hard to look at the United States and critique our country. Knowing what we know about racism in the United States it makes me wonder what other countries think about us.
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