Racism

I found this article online and really got a lot out of reading it. I never really thought about how powerful whites were. I can really break the ice with racism with my actions towards those of color. This will be crucial with my relations to the Chinese because they may have negative views upon those of color. Hopefully I am able to show them that we are all equal and deserve to be respected and loved no matter what our skin color is. I recommend that you read the full article by clicking on "Martin Jacques", whom I have quoted on the next two paragraphs below. Martin lived in Hong Kong for 14 months with his Indian wife, who died in a hospital in Hong Kong. His wife's struggle with racism amongst the Chinese really ignited this man's passion for promoting peace amongst all peoples.

"Hong Kong, compared with China, is an open society, and has long been so, yet it has had little or no effect in mollifying Chinese prejudice towards people of darker skin. It is not that racism is immovable and intractable, but that its roots are deep, its prejudices as old as humanity itself. The origins of Chinese racism lie in the Middle Kingdom: the belief that the Chinese are superior to other races - with the exception of whites - is centuries, if not thousands of years, old. The disparaging attitude among American whites towards blacks has its roots in slavery. Wishing it wasn't true, denying it is true, will never change the reality. We can only understand - and tackle racism - if we are honest about it. And when it comes to race - more than any other issue - honesty is in desperately short supply.

Race remains the great taboo. Take the case of Hong Kong. A conspiracy of silence surrounded race. As the British departed in 1997, amid much self-congratulation, they breathed not a word about racism. Yet the latter was integral to colonial rule, its leitmotif: colonialism, after all, is institutionalized racism at its crudest and most base. The majority of Chinese, the object of it, meanwhile, harbored an equally racist mentality towards people of darker skin. Masters of their own home, they too are in denial of their own racism. But that, in varying degrees, is true of racism not only in Hong Kong but in every country in the world. You may remember that, after the riots in Burnley in the summer of 2001, Tony Blair declared that they were not a true reflection of the state of race relations in Britain: of course, they were, even if the picture is less discouraging in other aspects." - Martin Jacques