Racism

According to Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions, “systems that facilitate privilege and inequality, subordination and domination, include racism based upon racial/ethnic group membership; sexism based upon gender; classism associated with socioeconomic status; heterosexism, concerning sexual identity or orientation; ageism relating to age; looksism and sizeism, concerning body size and looks; and ableism, about physical and mental ability” (45). We can see that there are many words that end in “ism.” A lot of these words listed above have been brought up throughout my lifetime while others I have just learned throughout this class. I remember the first experience I had with the understanding of an “ism” when I was in 6th grade. I remember learning the word racism when a boy got in trouble for wearing a rebel flag shirt. At first, I felt absolutely devastated that someone would make a flag to intentionally hurt someone. At the time, I didn’t really understand what the rebel flag meant and I didn’t know that it could be offensive. I remember researching it and I found out that it was in fact his choice to wear it and that he was proud of his heritage, since he had moved up from Alabama. I found out that opponents of the rebel flag saw it as a symbolism of racism and supporters felt as if the flag was a representative of their Southern cultural heritage and history. After finding out this information, I was no longer devastated at the fact that this flag existed but upset that the school immediately assumed that it was an act of racism and told the boy he could not wear it. I was a member of a non-target group. When dealing with the word racism a member of a non-target group would be a white person while a member of a target group would be a person of color. The people who were offended by the flag were mainly African Americans. If African Americans took the time to find out that the flag was not meant to be offensive and was simply part of who the individual is then I feel like the issue would have never been brought up. If I was a member of the target group I would probably also feel offended by the rebel flag. I would probably think that the flag is meant to be seen as racist and not actually understand the meaning behind the flag. Being a member of a non-target or target group I feel like it is the individual’s responsibility to understand what a specific word means and how it can affect others. We are able to find out that non-target members have the power to define the norm for what is reality, they see themselves as normal or proper, whereas target members are likely to be labeled as deviant, evil, abnormal, substandard, or defective. According to Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions, “privilege can be defined as advantages people have by virtue of the status or position in society” (45). A member of a non-target group may have a different status and be looked upon differently compared to a member of a target group. Being a member of these two opposite groups can truly affect peoples’ families and more importantly their life. According to Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions, “prejudice means, literally, to prejudge and involves making premature judgments without adequate information or with inaccurate information” (55). This helps to back up the whole concept behind the rebel flag mentioned above. People made assumptions and thought the complete worst and did not realize anything positive. Unfortunately, racism is still mentioned and can become a problem today.