According to the news this morning, South Africa is planning to formally protest President Trump’s (reported) remarks referring to El Salvador, Haiti and some African nations in a derogatory manner. South Africa’s government is expected to issue a diplomatic protest to the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria. A number of lawmakers, both republicans and democrats, have criticized Trump’s comments, some accusing him of racism.
Well, that got me to wondering about racism. We hear the term all the time and I suspect that it’s used often when what’s being described or discussed actually isn’t racism. My extensive research on the subject started with the dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster, racism is: 1) a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race; 2) racial prejudice or discrimination.
Actually, reading the definition didn’t help me much, but I think 2) in the definition above comes closer to what we usually think of as racism. If you talk to most people, they’ll say, “I’m not racist,” or “there’s not a racist bone in my body.”
I think a lot of people, including myself, equate racism to hate. The dictionary definition above mentions racial prejudice — prejudice is defined a preconceived opinion that isn’t based on reason or actual experience… so basically that implies that one feels superior to another without any test results or logical reason to demonstrate that anyone is superior to anyone else — it really doesn’t have anything to do with “dislike.”
Hate, on the other hand, is…. well, just hate. If you hate someone because of their race, that probably makes you a racist. If you hate people in general, because of other reasons, you’re probably not a racist — you just don’t like people.
The further I get into this topic, I’m more and more convinced that there’s nothing simple about it; it’s a very complex subject. “Racism” has been around for a long, long time and probably won’t go away any time soon. Racism is bad — hate is worse. Maybe we should concentrate more effort toward getting rid of hate… and maybe the race issue would fade away. When you stop to think about it, there really is only one race — the human race….
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