Colorism
In my life, I have never thought of colorism as an issue. The first time that I got to experience or understand the problem was during one episode of the famous comedy TV show, Black-ish. In the television show, Diane, a character played by Marsai Martin, argues with her parents expressing her anger and buried emotion regarding colorism. She highlights some of the glaring and often unspoken subtle discrimination that she receives because of her skin’s shade. At a boutique store, she is discouraged from buying a red lipstick color because “people of her shade” should not use such lipstick shade. When taking a classroom photograph, she appears darker than usual because the lighting was done to suit children with lighter skin shade.
I must admit that before watching this episode, I was unaware of colorism as an issue. When it became a topic of discussion in our class, I started to understand the magnitude of colorism. It is a form of discrimination within your group of people. The subtleness in this form of discrimination becomes even worse. I happened to do more research and decided to watch African news anchor, and I found out that most of the female news anchors had a light skin shade. In a continent where most people have a dark skin shade, it was peculiar to see that they would go for a lighter person. The learning of this topic in class creates a channel for discussion within the community and us. It also highlights the issue and opens a line of communication. The problem becomes very important to society since it will help people open up and discuss the issue and maybe come up with a solution to the subject.
Public education is education inequality.
One of the cornerstones for equality in the mid 20th century was school integration. The people involved in the movement wanted public schools to be integrated with both the white and the non-whites. Their vision was to see all the children get a quality education. However, as things stand now, this achievement remains a dream. With the school integration in the United States, many blacks moved into public schools, which were predominantly made up of whites. When whites constituted the most significant percentage, the schools had proper funding from the government. The schools also had enough human personnel to handle the schools’ population. However, with the move to initiate school integration, white children were transferred to private schools. Funding in public schools was slashed. Currently, public schools are overcrowded and underfunded. The resources accorded to public schools are rechanneled elsewhere. The teachers in these schools also expect very of their students. How can I student be the best that they can when their teacher has placed a limit on them? The teacher will not exact themselves to aid that student to be the best that they can be in life.
With that said, I got a taste of such inequality after watching “The Chi” where kids from a public school, predominantly blacks, had to fundraise to go to a museum. However, their counterparts in a private school did not need to fundraise. They also had their lunch covered organized by the school, whereas the public school had to carry their lunch. Such educational inequality ensures that blacks are always one step behind. They have to work harder than their white counterparts. The time spent on fundraising would have been used to study what they will learn in the museum. This form of inequality is of the highest order considering that education is the only thing possible to liberate people. Society will benefit from pushing for the government and other non-governmental organizations to fund public schools as they support their private ones. Parents and community will advocate and eliminate barriers that set limits for children when it comes to education.
Racism is not over yet.
A black friend once told me that they are taught how to behave when they are around police officers. They are taught how to respond to their questions and to always keep their hands visible at all times to prevent the possibility of them being shot. The ease at which police officers kill people of color is abhorring. It becomes worse when you listen to the excuses that their seniors offer when such incidents occur. Again, circling back to a TV show that I have watched, “The Last OG,” we see in one of the episodes when one of the characters, “Shezat,” is driving with his white stepfather are stopped for violating a traffic offense. The moment the officer sees the stepfather is white, he lets them go with a warning. However, when he is driving with his black father, the officer nearly shoots them before arresting them.
With that in mind, I find this absurd and terrible that we must teach our children not how to behave but how not to trust the police because they might end up dead for no reason at all. The black lives matter movement is a clear indication of how rife racism is in our current society. We tend to bury our heads in the sand that racism is over, but the truth of the matter is still around. Black people always walk with a target on their backs. They are cautious of their every move. I believe Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and other black movement heroes would still be leading the struggle for the freeing of the black person. From learning on the current state of racism, society will benefit from building a different form of culture. A culture of respect but not fear. A culture of equality and not white privilege.
We are human too.
During our weekly discussions, I came to one of my classmate’s submissions, highlighting the subtle discrimination they were getting because they were Asian or had Asian origins. They were highlighting their plight where other students would befriend them and request them to join their group since they considered them to be very bright academically. The other students would give them their math homework and let them handle their group project because they thought they were excellent academically. The student highlighted that as an Asian, they struggled too. They had to work extra hard to score 90%. They never felt at any point in time that they did well because they were Asians.
The stereotype that most people have on the Asian minority is abhorring and outright wrong. The stereotypes are rife in school setups. The interaction between the students is reduced to race and how they benefit from other races. I find this very wrong and a backward way of thinking. It reduces relationships with students of Asian origin to that of selfishness, where we want only to benefit from their minds. Society should understand that Asians are humans too. They should take understand the reason we deem Asians as bright is because they work extra hard. They are disciplined in what they do, and the stereotypes that we hold that are bright are wrong. They are as equally gifted as we all are, but they work harder than we do.