why we should be ok with racism

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Remember the video we watched in class of that guy talking about microaggressions.

The guy stated that microaggressions are something that people of color experience constantly and throughout their entire lifetime. While I'm not denying that they exist, I feel like he is overstating their severity. And sure, they can be harmful, but he is also overstating that in my opinion. To me, if someone were to say "where are you from" or "you speak good English", I would think the problem is them and not me. I wouldn't take offense to the extent that the professor believes it to be a "major event". But I can't speak for everyone.

Maybe times have changed since the video was posted, but for the most part I feel like people are generally careful not to offend others. From my own experience, it isn't like a "climate that is full of microaggressions", and as big of a deal as he makes it out to be.

 Also he defines microaggressions as varying from conscious and deliberate to unintentional comments/actions. I mean, conscious and deliberate comments sound quite aggressive to me, there isn't anything micro about that. So, I don't think it's fair to group these together and conflate them as one issue.

I do agree on the part that the unintentional comments are hard to take action on. Especially, trying to stop these comments by controlling the language, like P.C language. What goes from a problem affecting a few groups becomes one that affects everyone. 

The problem of racial microaggressions are a symptom of a greater, complex problem. In order to truly terminate racism, it will take years and years of reform on a larger scale, and even then it has side effects. I believe that through humans' tribalistic, racism will always exist. Even if we do rid it, other forms of prejudice will rise. As a society that values diversity, these problems will be inevitable. The alternative is controlling everyone and what they say and do, resulting in no racial issues but also no diversity. Such a solution couldn't be practically achieved anyways.

To summarize, these problems do exist but there isn't a good solution yet that makes the issue worth addressing. Our best bet of erasing racism is if an alien invasion occurs and humans finally decide to unite. 



Comments

  1. Olivia JacksonMarch 17, 2024 at 1:08 PM

    I really enjoyed your title and how it captured the readers attention. I agree with how you took a less common stance and showcased how there are bigger issues within our world that we should focus on first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Luan BMarch 17, 2024 at 5:58 PM

    The title definitely was not what I was expecting and I also liked the picture that you included because it’s the famous meme picture I’ve seen so much. I also liked how you talked about micro aggressions because its very interesting

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jaesung KimMarch 17, 2024 at 9:10 PM

    I liked how you recognized the issue as unsolvable at the moment, which is very realistic. The racial microaggression is an issue for sure, but I agree that it's a hard problem to confront because it's so subtle and would take a long time.

    ReplyDelete

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