Just Don’t !!

Samarvijay Singh Rathore, 11 years, a student of Neerja Modi School, Jaipur shared his newsfeature on racism

Racism has been around since humans developed on Earth. Everyone is racist is their own way. Racism is not only being discriminative towards people of color, but also of being discriminative towards different races of people and practicing ethnic cleansing. So many people have prejudice against colored people, especially in the 1800’s and 1900’s. Today, more actions to prevent racism have been taken but there are still cases of racism.

TYPES OF RACISM
There are a few types of racism-

• Institutional racism– Institutional or cultural beliefs and practices that make racial equality endless\or perpetuate racial inequality. Structural racism- Occurs when there is already inequality or unbalanced rules for different races which make people racist to make their race superior and make the opposite race inferior. 
• Interpersonal racism-When people prejudice against other communities or races.
• Internalized racism– When one has negative feeling towards her/his own race or community. A person can be interpersonally racist without even knowing it.

“Racism comes out of ignorance. People aren’t born racist, they’re taught prejudices that perpetuate such behavior. I think I underwent that because where I lived in Australia at that time, there weren’t many people with dark skin. Racism made me angry, sad, hurt and made me feel powerless. I managed to stand up for myself. I would correct the people who made fun of me and tell them that they were wrong. If they hurt me, I actually had no choice but to physically deter them. One of the reasons I could run fast when I was a kid was because I had to sometimes run away from those racist bullies or they would try to hurt me. Racism has reduced, but racism will never go away unless people teach their kids about how racism is wrong, and stop being ignorant. The recent events that have happened in these last four decades, like terrorism, have worsened racism. In places like Australia racism has reduced because more people from other countries live their now.”  – Gayatri Singh, an Indian-Australian who has faced racism, when she was a kid in the 1980’s and 1990’s

EXAMPLES AND SAMPLES

China is now committing genocide, commonly called Ethnic cleansing, against the Uyghurs. Uyghurs are Turkic speaking Muslims from the central Asian region. The largest Uyghur settlement lives in the autonomous Xinjiang region in China. Xi Jinping, president of China did not appreciate the Uyghur’s resistance towards communism. The Chinese government had installed complicated surveillance technology across the Xinjiang region. There has also been an increase in police numbers. Recently china started arresting many Uyghurs, keeping them in so-called ‘Vocational Training Centers’. Even Uyghur doctors were arrested, but doctors don’t need ‘Vocational training’. It is obvious that China is trying to hide something. These centers are basically high security detention centers which mostly resemble normal jails. Inside these centers, there is growing evidence that there are many human rights violations. The prisoners are dying due to forced labor. Children were taken from their crying parents to become a proper vessel for communism. The Uyghurs couldn’t even stand up for themselves. The whole world knows about this, but still no one is standing up for the Uyghurs when they need help the most. This is a form of institutional racism as well as interpersonal racism, as China believes in communism. Right now, the whole world is facing the Covid-19 pandemic, but in so many places, there is police brutality and cases of racism. There have been a few recent attacks on African-Americans in America. Recently during an arrest after a store clerk alleged that an African-American man (George Perry Floyd) had passed a $20 counterfeit bill, a white Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on 46 year old George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. There were three other police officers with Derek while he tried to arrest George. Later, Chauvin was arrested and the other three officers were suspended from duty. After this scene, word quickly spread after one of the police officers took a video which went viral- of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck. Protests all over America started. The protests were mainly about how police brutality against African-Americans had become so common and brutal. This is an example of institutional and interpersonal racism.

A few months after the George Floyd incident, more protests started due to another racist incident… The African-American Gilliam family of Aurora had gone out for a fun girl’s outing on a sunny Sunday morning, when it took a dark turn. A squad of Colorado police officers mistakenly stopped their car during a mixed up car theft. The Gilliam family consisted of Brittany Gilliam, her sister, daughter and two nieces. The children were of 6, 12, 14, and 17. The 17 and 12 year olds were handcuffed. The whole family was made to lie stomach down on the ground. At last they were free to go. This is racist as if it had been a white family, the Colorado police would have seen the kids and would have let the family go free. These events are a form of interpersonal racism.

In places like India, racism is still strong. If you’re Indian and have dark skin, you might be told to spend less time in the sun or buy creams or products which would lighten your skin. This is also interpersonal racism.<br>Now that you have understood the types of racism and the main point of this article, go and show everybody how you can make a difference and form bonds to help racism fall. Remember, we aren’t fighting for victims of racism, but for ourselves too, so that our future generation is prosperous and happy!

Bibliography

• https://www.shorelineschools.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=3131&ViewID=DEDCCD34-7C24-4AF2-812A-33C0075398BC&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=24891&PageID=1951&Tag=&Comments=true
• https://theconversation.com/explainer-who-are-the-uyghurs-and-why-is-the-chinese-government-detaining-them-111843
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
• https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/video-shows-police-force-4-black-children-onto-ground-gunpoint-stolen-car-mix-up/OYBP33R7R5BUZJYD5UMP34ENSU/
• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/china-practicing-worst-form-of-racism-committing-genocide-against-uyghurs/articleshow/77080917.cms