Enlightenment Vs Unenlightenment Regarding Racism Research Essay
Enlightenment Vs. Unenlightenment Sing Racism Essay, Research PaperThere is no uncertainty that racism exists in the United States. Almost everyone can acknowledge this. The interesting portion is that some people will acknowledge that they themselves are racist while others will claim that they are enlightened and that they are non racist or prejudiced. The truth is that the 1 who can acknowledge he is racialist is really the enlightened 1.
Person who claims he is enlightened and that he does non see colour is in the dark, he is unenlightened.It is a sad truth that being racialist is more natural in American society than to non be. As Robert Heilbroner says in Don? T Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments, ? Stereotypes are one manner in which we? specify? the universe in order to see it. They classify the infinite assortment of human existences into a convenient smattering of? types? towards whom we learn to move in stereotypic manner. Life would be a exhausting procedure if we had to get down from abrasion with each and every human contact. ?Our state has a long history of racism that continues today. Racism is perpetuated everyplace we look. We have the stereotyped Asiatic American in our telecasting situation comedies and we have the nominal Black American in our advertizements.
One who can acknowledge that this is non satisfactory in being an accurate word picture of our population has her eyes unfastened. It is of import to recognize that the battle against the ignorance of racism has merely merely begun. Person who is enlightened admits she is racialist so she may so travel on to go educated toward a better apprehension of her experience and the experience of others. Admiting you are racist encourages you to detect the prevalence of racism in our universe and in ourselves. Admiting you are racist can be painful for us white-folk and for everyone because you have to acknowledge to yourself how ill it is, but this is the beginning of the freedom. Just like the drug nut who eventually comes out of denial, recognizing your illness is the lone manner toward wellness.
I have frequently heard my fellow White Americans claim that they are non prejudiced because they do non see colour as if this is a good thing ; an enlightened manner to be! Not seeing colour is the same as being in the dark. Stating you do non see colour when you look upon a individual of colour denies that this portion of their individuality exists. It is truly that you are non seeing them entirely and you are filtrating out the of import component of ethnicity for your ain comfort. I think a batch of people do non even recognize they do this. Like Plato? s cave inhabitants in his celebrated work, The Allegory of the Cave, most White Americans, and all racialists included, do non see existent objects: existent people, but alternatively they see and hear the shadows: a fragment of the truth, if, even that. ? And say further that the prison had an reverberation which came from the other side, would they non be certain to visualize when one of the passers-by radius that the voice which they heard came from the go throughing shadow? ?Merely like the cave inhabitants, one who has non admitted he is racialist has non emerged from the cave to seen any other position.
He has non admitted that racism is prevailing in his universe and that he is to the full emerged in it. He has non seen that he is racist when he makes gags or remarks about a individual? s ethnicity in a derogative mode. He remains in the darkness of the cave, non seeing colour, unenlightened.I have observed that some of these people who claim to non see colour, believing themselves enlightened, prefer the word? prejudiced? as opposed to? racist? because, I believe there exists some fright in even expressing the word and admiting the construct of racism.
Accepting you are racist is the first measure to going enlightened every bit far as racial issues go. If you hold an ideal of human harmoniousness, you must acknowledge you are racist, educate yourself and others, and so turn it about so that you can get down to honour diverseness. The option is to stay in the dark, non seeing colour, non entirely seeing the people in the universe, and non entirely seeing yourself.
