Race Schism

Articles on "racism" seem to come in two different types these days: the ones that rag on about propelling the master race into a golden age of supremacy, and the ones that criticise the modern approach of "political correctness" to perceived racism. I think most of you will be relieved to learn that this rant falls into the second category, and I also think that most of us will agree when I say that racism is generally a bad thing.

Racism has been around for umpteen thousands of years. Humans have always been eager to draw upon differences in one another, categorising those who they consider to be less desirable and seeking dominance over them. In many ways this puts racism on the same level as sexism and classism. The more recent African Slave Trade and South African apartheid laws overshadow most other examples of racism; in fairness not entirely due to their somewhat contemporary status, but the fact that they were mass organised campaigns, approved by the law and aided by the government makes it all the more worrying.

All the way up the 14th century Viking raiders regularly captured slaves from the British Isles and Eastern Europe, where they were prized in the Islamic world for their light skin. The word "slave" actually derives from the word "Slav" (an umbrella demonym used to classify native inhabitants of Eastern Europe) due the huge amount of slaves taken from those areas.

But before this turns into a one-sided debate on the slave trade, allow me to turn back to the original topic of racism.

I was inspired to write this after a few particularly nonsensical articles that I read recently made me wonder what the fuck was going on inside the heads of the people that wrote them. I don't agree with racism, even though I kinda do understand where it stems from in most cases. What I don't understand is the extent of the hypercorrection some societies strive towards, introducing truly ridiculous measures that only have detrimental effects on what they are trying to accomplish.

Allow me to demonstrate my point with an extract:

"In July 2008, the London-based National Children's Bureau released a 366-page guide counseling adults on recognizing racist behavior in young children. The guide, titled Young Children and Racial Justice, warns adults that babies must also be included in the effort to eliminate racism. The bureau says to be aware of children who "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuck'." Nursery staff must be alert for racist remarks among toddlers, a government-sponsored agency report has said."

Okay, I don't even know where to begin to dissecting this...Let's start here: The bureau says to be aware of children who "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuck'." So, what you're basically saying is that if you express dislike for another culture's food, that's a racist statement? A lot of children are fussy with food, so it's pretty much redundant to make judgements based on that. Moreover, most people favour the foods they were given as children, so if a child is suddenly given something completely different to what he's used to, it wouldn't be much of a surprise if he turns out not to like it.

Next up: The guide...warns adults that babies must also be included in the effort to eliminate racism. Babies? Not children, but BABIES? Okay, so a child's upbringing has a lot to do with how he feels about people outside of his community; the unhappiness of a childhood is often indirectly proportional to how much animosity is felt towards foreigners, but that's the ADULT'S responsibility to provide a proper environment and set an example, not the baby's. The baby cannot control where it grows up or what it's exposed to, so instead of trying to "include babies in eliminating racism", why not try focusing on the source of the problem instead, i.e. THE PARENTS?

Finally: Nursery staff must be alert for racist remarks among toddlers, a government-sponsored agency report has said. The younger generations of this country are some of the most tolerant and anti-racist people ever. And do you know why? It's not because they were monitored as children and reprimanded every time they uttered some perceived racist statement; it's not because they had their behaviour judged and "corrected" every time they interacted with someone slightly higher up than them on the Von Luschan Scale; it's not even because they were brainwashed into liking chicken korma and Jollof rice.

It's because they were left alone. Letting children be in a multi-cultural environment is what dispels racist feelings, and it's the lack of interference that directly allows that to happen. Take this example: if you were to make a huge deal about the acceptance of ginger-haired kids, with loads of workshops and lessons dedicated to that, then you'd inadvertently be making it a bigger issue than it really is and drawing more and more attention to something that doesn't warrant it.

Yes, racism is an issue, but hardly in the primary schools of the UK. This isn't 1950s America where groups of white students would make plans to "beat up the black kid" after school, nor is it Middle Africa where racism is a HUGE problem and results in entire ethnic groups being enslaved by more powerful groups. This is the UK, which is and always has been an open hub for cultures to mix, mesh and occasionally clash together.

I actually believe that racism is independent of the law. Giving equality status is a very good thing, don't get me wrong, but it isn't a magical legislation that all of a sudden means alters peoples' tolerance towards those of other races. Take this extract for example, referring to Rosa Parks, the famous African-American woman who refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man in 1955.

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?" The officer's response as she remembered it was, "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."

The officer's response was not, "You have violated the law by not giving up your seat to a white man", it was just "I don't know, it's the law". The man probably had a lower opinion of black people, as was the standard at the time, but I'd put bets on him not feeling a genuine hatred for them. And even after the law was changed and black people were given equal rights to the white folk, there was still strong racism amongst the masses. The main reason why it's a lot less prominent these days is because people have just gotten used to living in close proximity to people of other races.

It's silly to try and enforce pointless "anti-racist" principles, such as the banning of national flags on establishments, because that only drives different groups into isolation. The truth is that people don't want to be a homogenous mass of un-individuals with no liberty to flaunt their differences, because most people are proud of where they're from and like to openly express it. It even causes perfectly reasonable things, like a Muslim mosque being given thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to promote their religion, to arouse ire in the surrounding non-Muslim community because it gives the impression that you're favouring one group over another; or more importantly, a foreign group over the native peoples.

A truly anti-racist society wouldn't try to impose any restrictions other than equality laws for all people sharing the common land, because the fastest way a government can evoke xenophobic sentiments in its population is by putting an ethnic minority group in the spotlight and glamorising them.

Letting the populace alone encourages groups to form their own communities, i.e. the Black Community, the Muslim Community, the Gypsy Community, which lets people revel in their own culture, but the proximity factor and the fact that all the people will be working the same jobs, attending the same schools and walking the same streets encourages the groups to mix - which is a good thing. It's all about finding the right balance between respecting different communities and promoting your own, which at the moment works very well in this country.


Deviating back to my earlier point, people hate being grouped into a mass. It's the reason why a lot of people not only hate, but fear, communism and on a sub-conscious level it's why we're so repulsed by zombies - they're all like-minded, interchangeable blobs with no determining differences between them.

I dislike a lot of things, but Political Correctness is something I truly hate. Those two words conjure up images in my mind of brainless, middle-aged white men and women clad in generic business suits who act like characters from the Sims; doing the same things over and over again for the sake of it with no perception of the bigger picture, and whose emotions are limited to either complete apathy, or the polar extremes of happy and sad, and solve all their problems with algorithms. They only address issues superficially, and even then they manage to fuck that up.

I just hope I live to see the day when black, white, Asian and Eskimos can all gleefully skip down the street together holding hands and singing songs, because when that day comes, I'll know I've finally lost it.

If all races are supposedly equal in this country, why do black people get more melanin than us?