Tuesday, March 13, 2007 . 3/13/2007

Racism.

Lastnight, I had quite the interesting discussion with someone claiming that racism really isn't bad, and that getting rid of all races, save for Caucasians, will actually help humanity. Let me start off with his mindset, which I will put in italics to indicate that these are not my own assumptions:

Whites are superior. If you look in places such as Africa, you will notice that they are poor, full of disease. Places such as Iraq are barbaric. Yet, when you look at the white race, you will see someone of far more intelligence. Whites are the only ones capable of fixing up other people's messes. Blacks are especially stupid, being in that they are easily influenced by such singers as 50cent, thereby dropping out of school to become a gangster. Sure, they have potential, but most are just useless, KFC-eating thugs with more of a tendency to cause violence. The majority of the people in jails are black. Many murderers are black, getting into petty fights involving girlfriends or somesuch. Whites, however, are better than this, and it is only the whole gangster thing that sways some to pretend to be black. In order for humanity to really move on, we must get rid of these other races.

This person has obviously made up his mind. In a way, I can see why he would think that blacks are inferior. It does seem to me that this particular race tends to be more violent, and dare I say it, more stupid. Of course, not everyone is like this. More than once, I have been guilty of secretly thinking to myself "If you want racism to end, tell the rest of your race to stop acting so stupid".

However, it is racism and intolerence that makes this world such a sad place to be in. When you are such a racist as to think the superior race is Caucasian and the rest should be eliminated, you are no better than a religious bigot that wants to rid of all gays, etc. You have absolutely no right to make assumptions such as that of ridding all the other races would "better humanity". Surely, if you were Chinese, African American, or Indian, you would think the idea to be absurd?

Furthermore, this idea will never catch on to the majority of the public, just as religious bigotry doesn't. Race shouldn't even be an issue! We are all human, we all share the same emotions such as hurt, happiness, and fear. We all have the same potential. In places such as Africa that are poor, helping them and educating them is the most that we can do to ensure that they live a descent life. And the war in Iraq? People of all races are over there, fighting for us and fighting to give the innocent people over in the country freedom. Simply eliminating all other races is such a half-assed thing to do, so instead of trying to better the world, we kill half of it off, even the innocents? What kind of a world would that be to live in where everyone is the same? Where intolerence abounds? You can hardly call yourself a humanist if you think that killing half the population is the answer to all of our problems.

While I don't exactly agree with this sort of racist mindset, I do agree with something a bit similar. Let's say that a child was born with an illness, causing him to rely on others for food, clothing, etc, even when he grows well into adulthood. The child can't think for himself, and has little to no hope that he'll ever be independant enough to have a job. Yet, he is still put through all this misery. I see this all the time: people with horrible illnesses or mutations are kept alive, presumably to help them have a "normal, happy life". To me, this is like letting fungus grow in your house. In the wild, if an animal was born with a serious defect, the mother would abandon the offspring. Some might view this as "wrong", but think about it: a baby elephant is born that has some weird illness causing him to be both blind and/or deaf. He wouldn't be able to make it on is own, and therefore is a heavy burden to the herd. Likewise, keeping a deformed, very ill child alive is a burden to those that have to take care of it. Basically, they'd be raising the child for nothing. But then again, keeping the mentally ill alive would help to improve science and healthcare when we try to come up with a cure, and there have been people that respond to this kind of treatment well. This of course would lead to more people and prolonged life, which, when you really think about it, isn't a very good thing.

More than once I've thought to myself that useless and downright stupid people who contribute nothing to society should be killed. If you want to live in this world, don't sit around like a lump of lard and waste space. I don't, however, use racism as a sort of "scapegoat". As I said before, we are all human, with the same potential as anyone else. Every race has its "bad seed".

Things such as the discussion of what is moral and what is immoral are particularly difficult to discuss, as everyone has their own version of what is and isn't "right". In essence, since humans are such a complicated species, the whole moral/immoral debate could be said that it's all in the mind. As far as I know, we are the only animal that is really capable of thinking to such an extent, such as questioning why we are here. You don't exactly see a bunch of bears get together and discuss the state that the world is in.

Evolution is truly amazing, and you have to wonder that after humans become extinct, what will nature come up with next? 0 Comments - Post/view comments