The Effect

There are very few moments of blinding rage in my memory. I can search back, search for tags in the files of my mind and bring up rarely anything resembling a "rageful" moment or "losing it" because of something that happened or was said. Heck, moments of actual anger are so few and far between that the search results could fit on two, maybe three pages on Google. This is not, however, true of my reaction to ignorant racism. Ignorant racism is a term I'll use for a moment in which someone uses a racially insensitive or offensive term without understanding its true nature. A good example would be where, because the people around someone uses a term a person assumes it is okay to use that term themselves. Problem is: it's not okay.

This just came up just a few minutes ago as I was reading a friend's wall, and saw that someone used an insensitive word. Now, being as how this person is in Texas, specifically the DFW area (a place where students have shown up for Halloween in black face) it pulls me in to the personal knowledge that there are still places in the US, specifically the southern states, where the overt racism is still rampant and takes place without thought. It stems from a place of complete ignorance and devoid of the understanding that what they're saying may be wrong. Still, I can't say this is an excuse, simply a fact of what the world is comprised of at its current history. But I digress.

Moments where I see or hear someone using such words, being completely oblivious of the surrounding context of a word infuriate me to no end, and it’s only recently that I’ve been trying to quench the tendency to “lose it” or change that anger into something positive. Actually, this came about after a conversation with my roommate’s mother, after telling her the story of something that happened in, you guessed it, Texas. She explained that my anger is commendable, but ultimately doesn’t really help to diminish the likelihood of someone displaying ignorant racism. Channeling the anger through the understanding that what the person is doing is, generally, out of ignorance the best response one can give is by attempting to educate. After all, a Bahá’í it’s our understanding that living the life and embodying race unity is the best way to change the world view of race and other such injustices. It’s only through those actions, those positive attempts to just exist, that revolution can take place.

So, I’m glad that I took this moment, this long moment to work through my own anger about racism and injustices that are dealt to those around me and transform that negativity into something overtly positive. I hope you’re able to take the time to think, as I did, more about how you can best embody racial unity and equality in your everyday life. And recognize that it’s not only a long, extremely difficult road it’s also an incredibly rewarding destination.