Black and White
- puppetwithnostrings
- Sep 26, 2015
- 3 min read
Black. White. Different colours, equal rights.*
We gave a presentation today in class discussing the obvious unequal representation of the races in the media. It was analyzing white people's increased risk of developping bulimia and emphasizing its correlation to the higher number of white models you see on magazine covers. To the fact that every movie has that 'black best friend' who has one or two lines throughout the whole movie as a way of eliminating the whitewashing. To the 'all white 2015 Oscars'. To the white barbies, to Chad and Taylor who just had to hook up in High School Musical just because they were both black...
I'm going a bit off track. Although there's so much still to say about that, it's not exactly where I was headed. Unless of course my teacher hadn't made this shocking comment...
"Just for future reference, be careful. It is better not to use the terms 'black people' and 'white'. It is better to say 'people of darker skin', or 'African-Americans', 'people of the white race' or 'Caucasians'."
Queue eyebrows jumping off my disdained and flabbergasted face that I tried helplessly to hide.
Let me set the scene out for you a little more in detail:
We don't live in the United States, or in any part of America. Basically, what my americanized biology teacher was suggesting, was to refer to any black person I meet on the street here in Sweden an 'African American'.
...
Not to mention the drastic difference between saying 'white person' and 'person of the white race'. *Facepalms so hard falls off chair*
The point is, entire populations have been manipulated and brainwashed so badly that they now view any differentiation of skin colour racist. They now associate two completely innocent colours such as 'black' and 'white' to awful events of the past, or rather, the present. Of course, my teacher was right on some level, and perhaps just needed a little nudge in the right direction. There are unspeakable words which inflict invisible scars and punches. And no one would ever expect to hear them in a presentation, let alone one told by two known feminists. Yet living in my teacher's messed up mindset confines one in their very own racist bubble, whether knowingly or not. Denying the difference of skin colour, denying the unequal rights and opportunities, the discrimination which we just can't seem to erradicate, that is the same as denying there is a problem, and that there's ever been one. It's as if she said that calling somebody gay, gay was homophobic, and that rather you should say 'of a different sexuality'. Of course, I agree that you should not use such words to label people, to determine who they are. However, this was not the case when describing racial inequality in the media.
Ultimately, the most alarming element in this discussion was the fact that she obviously hasn't watched the news of the past two years.
Black people all over the United States marching through streets with signs above their heads, 'BLACK LIVES MATTER', reporters from all over the world covering the endless stories of white police killings of black unarmed innocents, even when President Obama was elected, the first black president.
However, there is something to be said about all this. What does race even mean? Perhaps it's this word precisely that we must finally get rid of. We are not of different species. We are all humans, yet our skin shows different shades. The colour of our faces should not describe who we pertain to, how we should act, the people we belong with. 'Race' is a purely artificial aspect of our society, created only to separate humans. Skin colour, on the other hand, occurrs naturally, it is something we simply cannot control, and shouldn't feel the need to either. For it is only human thought and action which has decided to lead us on this never-ending battle for justice, when in reality, we are all born equal. We are simply fighting for this sudden humane realization.
And, dear Ms. Biology-Teacher, let me pass onto you what a wise old friend named Dumbledore once said, 'fear of the name, only increases the fear of the thing itself'.
*unfortunately not yet.
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