Racism and Discrimination

Racism and Discrimination

Racism means judging people in terms of race, nationality, customs and habits, social background or physical appearance, and not in terms of personality, intelligence and achievement. Most people are afraid of anything which doesn't seem to conform to their idea of 'normality', that is, to their stereotyped patterns of beauty, culture and behaviour. But, in my opinion, nobody has the right to decide what is 'normal', what is 'ordinary' and what is 'different', 'beautiful' or 'ugly'. It all depends on people's various points of view.

The racism attitude is among the more serious actual problems of the world, but it has always been present in the history of humanity, such as testified by the ancient practice of slavery. Slaves, who were brought in chains, were above all black people. Blacks have always been and are still considered inferior only because they are different from whites, in the colour of the skin, their physical features, their cultural background. The writer J. Baldwin affirms that "it isn't a human or a personal reality, but it is a political reality". This some theme is in Ralph Ellison's work. He is an afro-American writer that in his masterpiece, Invisible Man (1952), describes a society that tries to destroy or deny the black hero identity. The narrator's invisibility is presented as a passive condition and is attributed to the people's refusal to see him. In fact the narrator rejects the idea that the colour of his skin could be the cause of his invisibility. An important factor is that the protagonist lives in an underground refuge and chose to remain there until he could emerge into real rather than artificial light. Illumination corresponds to the Invisible Man's obsessive need to confirm his form, to protect himself against the distorting capacity of darkness. The difficulty to live and to be free in a mass society links Ellison's passage to Jungle Fever a film written and directed by Spike Lee about relationships between people who belong to different ethnic groups and nationalities. Prejudices and social conventions prevent a love between a black man and a young white woman, because the awareness of a different way of life and the dangerous of anti-conformity arise. Only the relationship between reality and illusion dominates. Spike Lee has directed other films about Negroes' life, such as Malcom X, leader of black movement's biography. This character, in the '60s, represented the black consciousness, willing to know himself, to love himself, to be profoundly critical about himself. Another leading spokesman was Martin Luther King. He was deeply convinced that non-violence might disarm the opponents. His dream was the integration of Negroes in America society. Even the American writer Alice Walker is involved in the defence of Negroes' identity. Her work The Color Purple (1981) had success because it condemns the male abuse of woman, the cruel desire of possession and conquest that leads to considering a person or people unjustly inferior. The protagonist, Celie, is a young black woman considered such as a thing rather than a person, above all by her close relations. The deprivation of education and the denial of communication lead Celie to write letters to God. In those unspoken prayers she vents her fears and her fragility, religion becomes her only sheet anchor. Celie has faith in the Lord in fact, in the end, she finds the courage to rebel and she will be a free woman.

Racism isn't only between blacks and whites, the extenuating factors aren't only class or nationality but even age and above all sex. Today for a homosexual it is difficult to live in a heterosexual society. About this theme tells Diversity (1987), a David Leavitt's passage. The protagonist, Jerene, is a lesbian girl, "she had long since convinced herself that her lesbianism was a neutral thing, neither good nor bad in itself". But her parents don't accept it and deny her. The described family is a slave of social conventions. Pride and senseless fear divide parents and sons at the time of need. According to me homosexuals are normal people. They eat, sleep, speak with others, and love, only their sexual needs are different but it isn't a good reason to consider them emarginated.

I believe that to be "normal", to live well in society you shouldn't follow stereotypes but you must be yourself, if you are yourself you can't be "different".