BLOG AGAINST RACISM DAY
And when a child is born
Into this world
It has no concept
Of the tone of skin it's living in
And there’s a million voices
And there’s a million voices
Neneh Cherry
Post your words, poetry, quotes or thoughts for Blog against Racism Day today, in the comments section of this post. Critisisms of other people's work will be deleted. For discussion and yes, if you must, arguments on the issue please go to Blog against Racism
With luck, the discussion engendered will endure past midnight on December 2. Via Creek Running North
Technorati Tags: blog against racism day, blogs, racism
posted by deviousdiva @ 11/29/2005 08:04:00 PM
13 comments
Sitting Ducks
A Jewish guy was walking down the street, when suddenly this big blond brute comes up and decks him. He is naturally scared and, more to the point bewildered, and asks the guy "What was that about?". The guy glowers down at him "You Jews crucified Jesus!". The man says "But that was 2000 years ago!". The blond guy says angrily "Well I only just found out about it".
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou.
From On the Pulse of Morning
And when a child is born
Into this world
It has no concept
Of the tone of skin it's living in
And there’s a million voices
And there’s a million voices
Neneh Cherry
From the song "7 seconds"
We love you, Neneh. Thank you
Some lyrics from the Kids from Acting Out Cardiff @ The Sherman Theatre, UK ... we've been thinking about Unity and racism is a sure way to cause DISunity and we don't want that... check out our words...
"UNITY COMMUNITY RACES FACES TASTES PLACES ...
We live in a world of differences
Let's start with different faces
We got all kinds of differnt People in many different places
We got culture, ability, looks and style
Why can't we all we all flow like the Nile?
Variety, religion, people and money
Why can't we all live sweet like honey?"
"United by love, but individually unique,
Coz with my voice I speak up, united by peace
My birthmarks and tatoos and my own DNA
I wear like a barcode in my own way
The fear's universal, united through war
Through the paradox of peace we work together at least
Individual leaders in spotlights are lonely,
It's the basic protection of unity you owe me.
Negative energy can't destroy us, because this...
A group of individuals united through differences"
Because I live in a small town and my husband has a lot of family (cousins several times removed), I don't really feel much racism. I know I'm an anomaly because I'm the only African American woman living in the surrounding area. But I have the safety of family and a warm smile to get me through. But I must confess I'd love to have another African American woman living nearby just so I can have conversations I don't feel comfortable having with anyone else. But it was hard to get used to the feelings that Greeks have against Albanians, unless they're representing Greece in some sporting event. So I had to teach myself to recognize Albanians from Greeks. In the US, I was just used to all Europeans being white folks without too many ethnic designations. Now that I'm living in Europe, those ethnic designations seem as important as color in America.
Diva, I intended to comment here but realized at the end of my "comment", it became a blog so I posted my thoughts on my own website rather than hog space on yours. If you read it and find that it's not too long, I can post it here as well.
Thanks for promoting the Blog Against Racism Day and your continued efforts towards human rights, tolerance and anti-racism in your blog.
Equality
You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
though I stand before you boldly,
trim in rank and making time.
You do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
.. maya angelou
Glad I found you, Diva (via CRN)
Racism: The Road to Nowhere
If you tolerate this, then your children will be next. --The Manic Street Preachers
1478-1834. Spanish Inquisition
1453-1821.Turkish atrocities in Greece.
1915.Armenian Genocide.
1700-1965.Slavery in the USA.
1948-1994.Apartheid in South Africa.
1940-1945. The Holocaust.
1994. Rwandan genocide.
1995. Srebernica.
2004.Darfur, Sudan.
Racism kills. It is not limited to one country, one civilisation, one time period. I've listed only 9 examples of the atrocities mankind has inflicted upon itself in the last 500 years. There are many more and there will be many more to follow because we seem incapable of change. We refuse to learn.
We've had the memorials to the victims. Speeches vowing never to let it happen again. We know about it. We have more power than ever before to implement change and prevent it and yet the best we seem to do is acknowledge its existence.
How many more Holocausts, genocides, mass murders do we need before we get it through our thick skulls that racism affects everyone, everywhere? Our apathy towards it has become the means to ensure its continuity. The continuity of racism will ensure the annihilation of the human race. Over the years, we've proven that we have become more adept at extermination rather than self-preservation. By tolerating racism in our lives, we haven't proven we deserve a better outcome.
"The black race is as the pupil of the eye; the pupil is created black, yet is it the source of light...."
(Baha'i Writings)
Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list.
Denis Leary
I am an invisible man.... I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
Ralph Ellison from Invisible Man (1952)
Hi DD, sorry I lagged on posting an excerpt here. I didn't have much computer time yesterday.
I had the good fortune of attending schools for the gifted, first in grade school and then again in high school. Aside from the standard teasing of students outside the program towards our geekiness at being the smart kids, I did not witness any racism or hatred during my school years. I had, however, been introduced to the concept of racism, and knowing the respect, love, and admiration I had for several of my black schoolmates I couldn’t imagine someone hating them, especially someone hating them for the simple fact of the color of their skin. This made no sense to me, I found it to be ignorant and stupid, but I was starting to realize that the world was not entirely made up of the smart people I went to school with, that there were lots of people who couldn’t see past the color line and the differences between people. I understood that these differences, in fact, scared some people, and often scared them into hatred. I started to see the same scene I saw in Jesus of Nazareth playing out in reality – towards black people, Jewish people. I was devastated. The world I had assumed existed was falling apart.
Yet I, in my innocent naïveté, could not understand the way it felt. I was a white, middle class protestant teenager. How could I even pretend to know what racism was like? I could sympathize, based on how I thought it would feel to be hated, or be judged, for what I was, but I didn’t know. And then I went to college.
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