Is Racism real?

Click here and read this article recently printed in my school’s newspaper.

Nixon makes some interesting arguments about the idea of race and especially about about the reasons why it’s a problem in the states. A friend sent me a facebook link months ago about this, and as I recall I refused to join the group. The information provided is somehow just too one-sided for me – no matter how wrong what happened to the Jena 6 is, stifling the other side of the story to focus on the racial injustice is also wrong.

From what I’ve read, the fact remains that these kids DID beat another kid in retaliation for something. If that’s the case, then they deserve to be in jail. Yes – they deserve a fair trial, and yes – the people who hung nooses to make a point also deserve to be in jail, but that doesn’t mitigate what they did or answer the larger question of why this happened in the first place. Students like the ones who protested in Red Square at Georgetown are making a valid point, but they’re also going out of their way to use rhetoric that distorts what happened. In many ways, they’re falling prey to the same racism they accuse others of leveling against African Americans.

They aren’t the only ones either. Nixon is right – it’s getting harder to be WASP in the US; it seems these days that everyone has to overcompensate lest we be “un-PC” about race. What kind of society is that really promoting? That’s not getting rid of the problem – it’s adding another problem on top of it to make it appear like the problem has disappeared. Humans tend to mistrust and fear that which we see as different than ourselves. If those Georgetown students truly want to see the death of “racism” in our country, then rather than emphasizing their differences it seems they ought to follow the very advice The Hoya was so recently accused of forgetting. They should help promote nonviolent and peaceful dialogue between diverse groups of people in our society. Maybe then people will begin to see just how much we all have in common. It seems, as always, that America has a long way yet to go.