Mary is a four-year old Asian girl. Three of her classmates are Iranian. Mary and her five other Asian classmates happened to run faster then the Iranians, and Mary concluded that Asians are faster than Iranians. A stigma was created. “Iranians are slow.” Oh, and they smelled of spices, but Mary only knew the word ‘stink’, so Iranians are slow, and they stink now too. Mary’s new Asian friends look like her, and they know Chinese. They quickly build a common bond, and then they forced the Iranians out of the playhouse because they are brown, and thus slow and stinky. And the Iranians are outnumbered, so they are weaker, and they don’t belong, like the cat does not belong on the page with the apple, orange, and banana. Besides they dress funny, don’t talk English too well, and don’t talk Chinese at all.
Mary had become an instant racist. Nobody had taught her this. It was a product of Childs play--a product of real life and growth—an innocent and natural occurring form of racism that led to pure oppression and discrimination! Mary did not feel ‘hate’ at all for the Iranians however. It was all play and fun. Mary was happy to play Princess and be the ‘bestest’ of the playground. But the Iranian girls felt hurt. And they hated that feeling. And they began to hate Mary and her Asian friends for delivering the hurt. They hated Asians because they were hurtful. And so they hit Mary on the head, out of anger, and called Mary “stupid.” So Mary now felt hate too. And hurt. And she hit back.
Mary had become an oppressive, hateful, violent racist within the first two hours on her first day of pre-school; and her first day around other children.
Racism, hate, discrimination, anger, oppression and ‘people in general’ are not the problem at all because these things just happen. It is Ignorance that is the problem, because ignorance does not ‘just’ happen. Ignorance has already happened! All we have to do is learn from what has already happened. You’d think that would be easy.
9 comments:
Oh how sad, and yet, how true!
This small story is the summarized version of human history, I think! With Mary and the three Iranian kids representatives of two societies or nations in different eras.
Is there ANY solution, do you think? Probably not, because if there were, we wouldn't have so many wars in the history. But then again, we humans went to the moon. Finding a solution for peace can't be harder than that, can it?!
Vince-I have a friend, Shane who has been on a similar rant. I am going to send him over to check you out.
Be well with your Neon ball self-great post, man! Thank you!
wow that's deep!
Great post Vince. How easy it is to get to the point of hatred and violence. What will save us all is knowledge ... IF we choose to use it. Some don't and that could be the undoing of us all.
Hi Narges--every problem has a solution. Maybe I’ll explore this in Mary Part 2 J
I’m glad you stopped by, I really enjoy reading your blog, and you are a full-hearted person I think. And I am happy to announce that the Asian and Iranian girls are now all best friends! But you are correct; the true story of Mary and the Iranians represent Nations in our history--Nations that have still not learned the true value of humanity.
~d—Wow, Shane DOES have a parallel rant. Actually this post was a desire I had to discuss racism after I read another post by a fellow who stated there was little racism going on in the USA. Yeah, right! As seen with Mary, racism runs in the veins of humanity and history. We are replete in it.
Rock—Words are just two-dimensional. Any depth comes form your own infinite wisdom.
mama mouse--I like your use of the word 'Knowledge'. It's more positive and sounds much better than ignorance. I think I'll use that word from now on//thanks.
Vince-I am glad you agreed with me. I am not the most literate when it comes to anything political-but Shane is my friend-and the husband can 'translate' for me.
I havent seen Shane's truck-but I imagine he will pop in to see you on Monday.
Be well.
Your story is quite an amazingly concise way of explaining how racism and hatred can start from the smallest things.
It's a wonderful post Vince. It makes people really think. People who write like you help to erase some of the ignorance you speak of!
You are awesome.
d--I don't know much about politics either other than the whole thing seems to attract power hungry scumbags.
Jo--Amen to your Amen!
Colleen--One thought I had was that racists are just people with a hang-up. We all can have hang- ups, and we all can get rid of them. Because ultimately, hang-ups limit ourselves more than others.
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