Racism. Any person can be a victim. Have you been the victim of racism? Explain.

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   thomasczechposted 7 years ago

   Racism. Any person can be a victim. Have you been the victim of racism? Explain.
   
   Racism can happen toward any person of any colour from any country or continent. It does not only occur to one group of people.

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   Ericdierkerposted 7 years ago

   Shucks I am a big old middle aged white guy. And I have been fully disparaged for my race. Oh be put on notice, Dierkers don't do victim so that part is overstated. I was raised in a town that was 12,000 at my birth. The town is about 7,000 feet in elevation. Our combined minority races outnumbered us whites about 65% to 35%. We had Chinese/Asians that came in for the railroad. Black/Afircan Americans that came in for the sawmill. And a whole lot of Native American/Hopi and Navajo as we were the closest "city" to their lands. And different than what we are used to today we had many Mexicans -- different because they were mostly Native Indigenous Mexicans - Indians. While I was growing up we went through some segregation and then busing in our schools. Truth be told we were all a bit racist. Although in those days it was more about being proud of who you were -- not so much putting down the other. Sometimes we would engage in interracial fistfights and rock fights. This was within twenty or so years of WWII. So us white guys would fight more over our ancestral nationality than we would over race. I was a mixed Irish and Italian being adopted into a German household. Those were grounds to pick a fight with me.
   My wife is Vietnamese and my son is obviously a halfbreed. We socialize within the Vietnamese community here and I am clearly discriminated against. Strange that. Most of the discrimination comes by way of good intentioned accommodations for my lack of linguistics and my big old size. They love to gossip and I am the brunt of much of it. We are a Christian community. I am different than them. And we all darn well know it. But again that mostly stems from a pride of our heritage.
   I worked in Vietnam and they treated me different in a very racial way. But mostly it was about my nationality rather than race.
   France was the worst in the late seventies -- and that was not race but nationality.
   I wonder what it would be like to think of yourself as a victim.And the idea that one can be a victim of being a race is really rather absurd to me. If you are different people who are different than you treat you differently. If they treat you poorly because of difference that seems to be their problem and not yours. One thing to remember is that there are a lot fewer white guys in the world than of many races.

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      tamarawilhiteposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      The problem is that kill all white men is an acceptable hash tag, BLM calling for death of whites and cops is a mainstream publishable opinion, but saying all lives matter gets you called racist.

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   tamarawilhiteposted 7 years ago

   Company HR seminar saying that all men are sexist, all whites are racist, all heterosexuals are homophobes. The administrator said blacks are being penalized by police and prosecuted. I brought up FBI statistics on blacks killing blacks at far higher rates than whites killing whites, as well as interracial crime being much higher for blacks on whites than the other way around. I was told these were hate facts and formally reprimanded at work.

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      Ericdierkerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Wow - that is amazing

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   thomasczechposted 7 years ago

   Great comments thus far, thank you. Please check out my hub about Racism. I am truly interested in all opinions.
   Again, thank you.

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   NatashaLposted 7 years ago

   I think everyone has experienced some sort of racism, overt or more subtle.  I also believe that we all have at least an inkling of subconscious racism, be it discomfort with those who don't look like us, or painting an entire race with too broad a brush.
   
   As a light-skinned mulatto who speaks Spanish, I'm often mistaken for a Hispanic.  Hispanics generally relate well to me because they know I try to relate to them.
   
   The actor Pernell Roberts (known for his civil rights actvism) lamented that "church is the most segregated place in America on any given Sunday morning," and wondered how preachers could assert that we're all equal in God's eyes when they clearly don't believe it.  Unfortunately, my own experiences with organized religion proved him right.  They're also a major reason that I left Christianity.  Among things I dealt with regularly from fundamentalists:
   
   *  God never meant for races to intermarry.
   *  "Why don't you do something about your hair?" (In other words, I should quit wearing it in its natural curly state, even though putting it up gives me headaches.)
   *  "I'm glad to worship with my white brothers and sisters.  If you want to go to church with black people, go to a black church."
   *  "Are you BLACK or something?"
   *  A white pastor approached my (white) stepfather to ask him, "What's the story with Natasha?  You know..."
   *  "Where are you from?"  (Texas)  "That's...not what I meant."
   *  Thin-lipped smirks from "nice church ladies" who saw me sitting with my white mother in church after coming home from college.
   *  Those same church ladies lambasting my mother for inviting a black visitor to sit with her for the service.  (The pastor sided with my mother, by the way.)
   
   That doesn't mean that blacks have always treated me with acceptance.  Black students spread lies about me in high school and regularly harassed me for wearing my hair natural.  They even called my house one year until my dad told them I didn't live there.  Black neighbors regularly pointed and stared at me as I went to get my mail.  Black colleagues have given me "go to Hades" looks—when they weren't sidling up to me to whisper conspiratorially, "So...you KNOW I have to ask, what nationality are you?  Are you even American?"
   
   So I appreciate the neighbors, colleagues, and students who don't hate me simply for being...me.  I try to be nice to everyone.  I just wish that more people would extend the same acceptance to me that I extend to them.

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      Ericdierkerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      How interesting. It kind of reminds me of growing up as a bastard illegitimate child.Sure I was paranoid - but I had good reason. It is good to see a person who went through what you did be such a good person now.

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