I
am sure that most of you were struck by a harsh feeling while watching this
short video… “A despicable person” What a horrible expression, isn’t it?
According
to the WordReference Dictionary, despicable means: “deserving to be despised”
and “worthy of being despised”. If you think about these definitions, two
questions might cross your mind: Who are the ones in charge of classifying
someone as being despicable? and, which are the parameters to tell whether
someone is despicable or not?
From
my point of view, nobody has that kind of power... We are the ones who directly
attribute to ourselves that power and even choose the parameters to work out
the “election of our victims”. We can despise a person for several reasons:
Religion, culture, social class, music they listen to, or like in the video,
their skin, among others.
This
behaviour may be just a natural part of our human essence; it may be something
we just do without taking into account correctness... Or, it may also be
something we have been creating while evolving into a society, a power-hungry
society focused on the existence of the superior race.
We
don’t know the answer but the thing is that this behaviour - let’s call it
being a racist - has cost us a wide amount of lives, has made us experience
misery, grudge, separations and even wars.
We
don’t know which the starting point of racism was but we do have to stop with
it! Racism is one of the large numbers of characteristics that make us doubt
about our evolution...
There
is no worth for racism to exist and keep destroying our community.
The
change starts on us, let's not be despisers, let’s be accepters.
Andy
Great Video Andy!!!I think that this video invites us to reflect about racism, prejudices. I don´t know if racism will stop someday, but we can reduce it by influencing others to stop. We don't have to accept any form of racist hassle. We can prevent racism we just need to think the right way. Sometimes people judge other's by their appearances when they are supposed to judge them on their personalities. It wouldn't be nice if you were called, black, white, brown, it's not funny, it just hurts. Everyone, no matter what their nationality or race, has a right to live happily and free from discrimination.
ResponderEliminarThank you Flor! And yes, you are right. We all deserve a happy and free from discrimination life.
EliminarThat's it! On your face (I'm talking to the despicable woman. Sorry about that.).But it's the first thing that came to my mind. A few days ago I found a short film (less than 3 minutes) called TZAFAR and it deals with the same issue. A family is waiting outside a doctor's office and there's a man sitting next to them. The family looked down on him because of his appearance and they were really surprised when the doctor called all of them into his office. I won't tell you how it ends (watch it :) ) but once again, we learn something! C'mon, all of us are equals no matter where we were born or our skin colour, etc! How do we dare to look down on someone thinking that we're better than them! It's ridiculous!! And I agree with you Flor as well
ResponderEliminarOMGGGGGGG! I have just watched the video! I got goose bumps! I think there is nothing worst than judging somebody because of his/her appeareance. Thnaks you very much for your sharing and comments. Genious!
EliminarI've already watched that video, and I can't help but feeling disgusting every time I see it. Even though it's just a video, it shows a reality that still exists, and that's what I can't understand. We are in the 21st century and there are people who still believe that our skin colour, relogious believes, nationality, gender, etc; determine if we're superior or inferior than others. And that's terrible!! We should take a look back and learn from the mistakes we've made in the past.
ResponderEliminarVery interesting post, Andrea. Sometimes people believe that we, human beings, have overcome our differences, when actually we haven't. We have to reflect about that and change our attitudes.
Thank you for your comments Dani. I totally agree with you! We have to learn from our past mistakes. Our humanity has suffered enough just for being racist and holding an idea of racial superiority....
EliminarIt is quite certain what you said... Last year I worked with my students about biases, asking whether they agreed or disagreed with certain assumptions such as: "All the politicians are corrupt", "prostitutes are immoral women who give a bad example", "women are more sensitive than men", and so forth... It was really interesting to question and debate these topics, because most of us have prejudices ingrained and we take them as natural and true. Thus, in our schools, students mock at bolivians, for instance, which is a manifestation of racism. I believe we must raise awareness of this issues and help youngsters and children to beat common prejudices.
ResponderEliminarGreat suggestion Andre! We should raise awareness and make influence over new generations' conceptions and points of view... Equality should be something common for them.
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