Should this surprise us? Honestly, we act as if this is surprising. Just look at our language and the way we use to describe what is negative in our world. We describe evil as dark. When referring to redemptive or good experiences, we describe them by referring with lighter color like white -- the white dove is symbolic of peace and the angel of death is black. The dominance of white as the good color is deeply embedded in our psyche -- particularly where the Western culture is the dominant culture. An example of this dominance is in our tendency to say that light, which is good, is white and that dark, which is evil, is black. It is easy to spot racism when it is a flagrant miscarriage of justice, but the real problem is our silent racism, which is very hard to uncover and it is truly the driving power that still grips our society. One great example is in our metaphorical language to describe positive and negative matrix. This reporting by Anderson Cooper merely asserts the known truth that racism still has a very strong hold on our psyche.
Silent racism is the true destructive power that hold us captive by dividing us against one another and also by putting us against each other.
Silence racism has a strong hold on us; its shackles are invisible and unassuming in daily life. It is also very defensive -- i.e., to say that most of us in mainline America would be most offended and also fervently defend against any accusation of prejudice and racism. As long as, we aren't truly able to see our sin; the truth of our being, we will not be able to free ourselves from the shackles of bigotry, intolerance, prejudice and racism.
No comments:
Post a Comment