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.