Call me, Racist
By Emily Guajardo
I am not racist. I just call it how I see it. Black is black, white is white, yellow is inferior and brown will forever be superior. We are all “equal”, yes, but my kind will continue to reign in any country, including the United States. Viva Mexico! Viva la Raza!
Now, please understand that I am not racist by choice. I did not choose to create stereotypes by myself. On the contrary, I am predestined to the belief that the black man is poor because he wants to be, the white man is bursting with money, the asian man is always a cheat, and the Indian can never be understood no matter how hard he tries. I am submerged in stereotypes and, because of this, I have racial slurs embedded into my language, my everyday vocabulary. When describing a person, the first thing I describe is their appearance followed by a remark regarding a commonly known stereotype. As a child, my Abuelo would speak about his workers with remarks regarding their race and ethnicity. At a very young age, I was trained to stereotype males based off their color and accent.
“Los negros son pobres porque quieren. Nunca trabajan y siempre están lloran. Saca te¡”
(Black people remain poor because they want to be. They never work and are always crying about it. Get out of here!)
“Trabaja como un negro”
(Working like a black man)
“Rico como un guero”
(As rich as a white man)
I had no censor when regarding race. Does that make me racist? Perhaps, but that is how I was raised.
The answer is simple; stereotypes are developed in regard to our lifestyle, our heritage and our surroundings. Whether it’s living in a ghetto, el barrio, the suburbs or the trailer park, we are fed stereotypes to package our mindset in correlation to our lifestyle. According to Psychology Today, we create unconscious assumptions about others and, therefore, remain uncontrollable in our biased opinion. In other words, we can’t expect for our prejudice to go away in one sitting.
“One thing is certain: We can’t claim that we’ve eradicated prejudice just because it’s outright expression has waned. What’s more, the strategies that were so effective in reducing that sort of bias won’t work on unconscious beliefs.”
According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, racism is the belief that some races of people are better than others. Since our life began, we have been programmed to specific stereotypes regarding ourselves and others around us whether we acknowledge it or not. We have been told to be proud of who we are. If you are white, be proud. If you are black, be loud. It is because of our programming and definition, that we can consider that everyone, in fact, is a cold, harsh and inconceivable racist.
Hold the torches and the mob. There is still hope.
Although there is the unconscious notion of racism already installed, the war is not over. Actually, it has not even begun. A new start up, a new software, the next big thing. That’s right; We need to be re-programmed.
According to the University of Texas Dept. of Psychology, children are preprogrammed to stereotype based on previous unconscious ideas based off what they see in the media. In cartoons, there is always the black kid, who is slick and athletic, the brown kid, who solves all the problems in the group and, of course, the white kid, who leads the pack. At such an early age, children are fed stereotypes in their everyday entertainment. Therefore, they are sucked into the world of racism from the beginning.
“The act of categorization then triggers the process of social stereotyping and prejudice formation. Four factors are hypothesized to have an impact on the processes of forming stereotypes and prejudice. These include: (1) essentialism, (2) ingroup bias, (3) explicit attributions to social groups, and (4) group-attribute covariation.”
Consequently, the issue at hand is the fact that children are sub categorizing people based off their color, accent and origin at a very young age. Regardless if kids are comprehending their actions, the fact of the matter is children are packaging stereotypes from their own subconscious. The issue revolves around how we are allowing these assumptions to occur. Stereotypes are becoming more of our everyday language and are being accepted as politically correct.
I am one of those children. Reprogrammation is the key to the needed revival in my everyday language. The only solution to this recurring issue is to stop. Stop, what? Stop allowing myself to hear unruly stereotypes causally being thrown around my house and consider that normal. It is not normal to hear constant racism at such an early age. It is not normal to be accustomed to categorize blacks as poor negros. It is not normal to assume that every Asian is exceptionally smart. It is not normal to lower my self esteem simply because I am brown. Racism is not normal.
Get out there! Meet more than one Black, Hispanic, White, or Asian person in your life. How can I categorize an entire race based off of the one person that I have met. Reprogramming myself has to start with meeting more people in one specific race and realizing that not all people fit the stereotype.
Stop allowing racial slurs to enter my brain. Stop allowing myself to describe a human based off their color. Stop allowing myself to feel pity just because I am defined by a stereotype. Revival has to start with me.
