Is race always the issue?

Last summer I received a citation after being being caught for underage drinking and had to show up to court in order to receive a punishment. I was not the only person that got caught on that day, my girlfriend and one of my close friends also received a citation that day. We were supposed to show up to court on the same day but something happened and the date was reschedule, so now my girlfriend and my friend had the same court date while my was schedule for a month later. So both my girlfriend and friend went on the day they were supposed to and received very different penalties. My girlfriend's case was dismissed and she didn't pay anything while my friend had to pay $140. I always wondered if the fact that my girlfriend was let go for free had to due with her skin color. First of all they both receive sentencing from the same judge, who was also the same judge on the day I was schedule to be in court and happened to be black. My girlfriend is a young white girl, very innocent looking with orange hair and blue eyes. My friend is Hispanic ( from Colombia) with a light skin color, blonde hair and brown eyes. He looks white at first sight until you hear his Spanish accent. On my day, I went to court and my case was also dismissed. Juan, my friend, and I aren't that different. We dress about the same, are the same age and about the same heights, have about the same mannerism and it was our first offense (my girlfriend included). What do you think led to him having to pay $140? Do you think race had anything to do with it or was he shit out of luck?   

Would you go against your race?

In chapter 5,  Wise talked about the essay essay he wrote opposing Israel's supports and funding for anti-black South African organizations. He did so because he thought that, as a group that is being oppressed, Jews should not fund or support oppressing groups that oppress other group. By doing so he receive many negative feedback and threats because he was going against his race. We see this trend of people being look down upon or being seen as traitors when go against their own race or religion? Why is it so hard to acknowledge that sometimes they're the problem even if they are not directly the culprit or aware of it. One great thing the German government has done was to make it a law for everyone to be aware of and not denied the events of the Holocaust and making any Nazi organization and memorabilia/merchandise illegal. By doing so, it creates a common understanding between everyone in that country so people are not fooled again to recreate an event as devastating and as diabolical as that event. although not everyone respects that rule, only a small population does and we see that Germany has less Neo-Nazi or Anti-Semitic organizations than many of its neighboring countries. I think we need to go to that extreme in the U.S. to have change but if we want to obtain anything close to racial and cultural equality, everyone has to realize that they are doing something wrong. First black people have to realize that we're not saints and that certain our actions that we did in the past and that we still do create problems in society. In a way, we are victims of our own actions. Next white people have to realized they have it easy and that they actions in the past and present force black people to commit crimes and other things and that crimes are not only limited to black people. I think realizing and being able to self critic each other without being seen as not a "true black" or "true white" person will facilitate this process.

Be the Change You Want to See

Last week we ended class on an interesting topic. The topic was how would a black person react if a white person walked towards them and asked to learn about them because they were black, how would they respond. When Asked, Chris and Codey said something along the line of ignoring the person. I see why they would both react that way but I think it's because of that attitude that today we still have so many racial issues. The attitude of label anyone who makes a somewhat racist remark as a racist won't solve racism. As weird as it sounds, I would sit down with the person, calmly explain to them that they can't approach a person in that manor and tell them about myself and try to learn about them. I would do that because I believe people are naturally good and sometimes say dumb shit. That doesn't necessary mean that they are racist. If that person was racist, they wouldn't be approaching me in the first place. I think it is important for us to be able to distinguish racism and ignorance. You might not be able to change a racist person but you can do something about an ignorant person. If we just label everyone as just racist then, those who are genuinely not racist would just get piss and the miscommunication cycle would just keep on continuing. Just like Aastha pointed out in class the other day, sometimes we just need to be the bigger person by trying to understand where a person is coming from, and I totally agree with that.

Things are just not fair!

It's amazing what humans have achieve. We went from hunters and gatherers to sending a man on the moon. But we seem not able to have answer for issues such as racism? Are we ever going to be able to fix this problem? I think to answer this we have to keep in mind that our whole existence is based on things being different and not always being equal. One characteristic we possess that is really hurting our society is the ability to distinguish and greed. By distinguish things we usually place values on them which leads to greed and that leads to creating conflict. Acting on conflict does resolve things, it just leads to us going back to where we started. Monarchy and democracy are pretty much the same thing. They only differ in the sense that in democracy the public has at least some kind of power than in monarchy but one man still has control. The same thing goes for slavery and white privileged. I think they're pretty much the same things. the only difference is that today we don't the direct oppression of black people. Black people have physical freedom but their social freedom is limited. I don't blame white people for being privileged and I don't think anyone should. They weren't the cause for it. They just happened to be born black just like Blacks, Asians, and Latinos happened to be what they are. White people should be willing to give up some of their powers on their own will. Because forcing them to give it up just won't work it'll lead to another form of control. Instead of blaming, we should make white people realize.

Hello, my name is Gnoleba Hans Seri and I'm know by everyone as simply Hans. Growing in the Ivory Coast, in Africa racism was not an issue to me mainly because everyone look the same. Although there was I didn't grow up with racism, there was a lot of discrimination in my country. There are 60 different ethnic groups in my country and each one speak a different language. The northern part of my country is mostly Muslim due to Arab influences and the southern part christian. as a child leaving in the southern portion of the country, I was thought to dislike and fear the Muslim of my country due to their religion and culture, but I was never able to do it. I always tried to put myself in the other person's shoes and try to understand what they're going through. My wish was finally fulfilled when I moved to the U.S. and became the victim of not only discrimination but also racism. I'm taking this class to better understand other people's way of life and to get better cultural understanding of the world, and I hope this class turns out to be an awesome experience.