For a homework assignment we were told to write about three of NPR's This I Believe short essays. The three I picked were Just Like Pastrami, All the Joy the World Contains, and The Right to Be Fully American .
Just Like Pastrami dealt with how a good life is "marbled" like the meat - how everything is interconnected and well-mixed as opposed to just layed and piled on. I found this metaphor extremely interesting because we often deal with the fact that our personal relationships and family life and school life conflict instead of being harmoniously woven. Mr. Schulman, the author of the piece, discusses the fact that you can never separate the different aspects of life and expect it to be perfect.
The second piece, All the Joy the World Contains (by Jimmie Dale Gilmore) talked about Jimmie's experience with a life of finding something to believe in, which lead to him jumping from states of inspiration to cynicism. He talks about how after the drugs, sex, and the rock lifestyle, he only found solace in being genuinely interested in others' welfare. I found this extremely insightful, if not quite as metaphoric as the Pastrami piece. Here's a man who hit rock bottom, but found something that was worth believing in. It made me think about how sometimes, we all need something to believe in, even if it may be nothing to another person.
My favorite piece was The Right to Be Fully American, by Yasir Billoo. Yasir is a Pakistani Muslim who immigrated here. It made me really think about the "politics" of our culture - many of us say that we treat everyone with the same respect, but is that really true? Noone can deny (well, maybe the FAA might...) that those 'random' security checks at the airport are just slightly biased in many cases. Yasir had dealt with both his religion and his nationality here, even though he is an American citizen (and a lawyer, no less). The piece made me think about how anyone can be an American, but Americans can't necessarily be, say, Italian.
Edit;
I think that racism probably is caused by either a) Ignorance or b) fear.
Usually it's a combination of both. America's conflicts with the middle east prevent us from being closer to the truth of the matter of things such as Islam - what we know, we basically only see on the TV. Usually they are negative images - Hamas militants blowing up markets, firefights, etc. Just as Germans and Japanese were prosecuted during WWII, many of us are subtly prejudiced against Arabs. And to make matters worse, many people are ignorant of the difference between Arabs, Kurds, Pakistanis, etc. What would you be more afraid of in a dark alleyway? A white guy with glasses, or a black guy with a bandana on? Never mind that the white guy could chop off your limb and eat your flesh, you'd probably be more worried about the black guy mugging you. Why is this? It's not like we see the color black and go *ding!* "That is dangerous". It's because of our preconceptions of black people - on Cops you see them running, on the news you see them getting jailed for drive bys, etc. Fear is also related - just as we might be afraid of being mugged by the black dude, we're also wary of people from the Middle East because of, well, 9/11. Fear can control us - just look at the government's color-coded system, one of the greatest examples of something stupid that money was wasted on. There was absolutely no basis for the color code system, yet we were all frozen in our seats because we were in the Red. 9/11 also scared the crap out of us, prompting us to throw reason out the door and not question the war on Iraq.
So that's the reason why I think racism exists.
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3 comments:
I think you do a good job with relating the meaning of these differnet beliefs to yourself, as in realying your observations and feelings toward the subject. An example I found was when you noticed that school, family, and friends etc. seem to conflict rather than being "woven" together. As a response to your comment on my page...
I agree art is something that is in you and really can't be taught. You've always had a talent in drawing and music. To be very successful at certain things, art in this matter, I think that you need to find what you were born with, that special talent that you have in something, and build upon it to become great.
I also read about Yasir. In Hawaii, I guess we don't really experience that much racism or bigotry like what he has to go through. You can't deny that it's not there. Like if you had to change your race, what race would you choose? I doubt it would be Middle Eastern or Black (unless you're totally gangster.)
Ya I agree with John when he said that growing up in Hawaii we don't really see all the racism that there is in this world of ours. Is it human nature to make other people who are different than us feel inferior or rather is it we as human beings need to be superior than someone else? Is that the cause for all the hating that their is in this world?
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