Bound in Biases

Last night I watched an episode of Cold Case where a young, black man living in the 60s was beaten and murdered, but the case went cold. His family was new in a northern town of mostly white neighbors. He accused a white man of raping his black female friend, who was a maid in the home of her accuser. Of course when she got up the guts to file a complaint she was humiliated in front of the police, the black guy was put in jail for assaulting a cop, and the next day he was found beaten bloody so much so that his mother barely recognized him.

Now I’m not usually one to strike up the race card, but the sad part is that stories like this one were all too common, and sometimes it shocks me (even now) to think of the hate that we as individuals are so capable of. At one point, specifically while enrolled in an African American Studies course during Undergrad, I found myself looking randomly at whites and wondering “If this was 50 years ago, how would you be treating me right now?” and that was a dangerous mentality to possess.

We have come very far, and to that I am grateful, but only sometimes in terms of black versus white. Racism is still prevalent today, even if sugar-coated by equal employment opportunities clauses and the freedom to enroll in any school of one’s choosing despite their color.

But we still have a long way to go.

Although we have moved away from turning our noses up at a black man/white woman relationship, many of us, and I think when I speak in terms of “us” it is mostly at Americans, but actually this epidemic spans world wide, too many of us toot our noses up at a roof worker because he looks to be “Mexican” or how many of us run a full body scan at a Middle-Eastern man or even do not think twice about labeling a middle-aged Asian woman someone’s nail lady? (and if you don't, good for you! Ones like you need to take note.)

Years of seed-planting and brain-washing, continuous episodes of finger-pointing and eye-rolling, decades of side-eyeing and under-breath mumbling has led us to a melting pot culture of unfair judging, one after another. Granted some of our fears may have weight, but for the most part we have been carrying on traditions that are not only hurtful, but detrimental to our growth. It hurts me when I hear young kids saying unkind words or making rude gestures toward someone of a different ethnicity, because those behaviors are contagious.

I want to think that some day the stigma that dark-skinned and light-skinned will never be equal will finally die off and get buried with the raped slaves and guilty slave owners who now rest in peace. I want to accept that all minorities will be given the same respect on the same playing field as their standard counterparts. I want to believe that we will let go of prejudices and phobias that have no more right to live than the Big Bang Theory. I want to. And if I live in a world of flowers and sunshine because of it, I hope there’s a world of others to join me.

Still, I do think that episodes like the one I saw last night, as painful as it was, are necessary. Remembering that we do have the ability to be so senseless, disgusting, and hateful are probably horrifying reminders of reality we shouldn’t push too far back on the shelves of history.