Friday, February 27, 1998
Concept of race creates artificial social divisions
DIFFERENCES: Return to childhood’s innocence; re-learn to see
people as unique, equal individuals
By Daniel Rego
Race is the most putrid and hate-inspiring word ever spoken.
Racism is the belief of one race’s superiority over another. Some
believe racism involves only one or two races against the others,
but this claim ignores the core problem. The core problem is the
very concept of race itself. Those who stress race above all are
the root causes of racism in America and elsewhere in the world.
When people are classified by their racial identity, they are
separate, divided and different. Separate is inherently unequal.
Some race-conscious individuals say racial classifications are
inherent in everyone. They are not inherent, for the concept of
race is artificial. Perhaps it can just be forgotten to history, so
that we don’t look at people in terms of race anymore. This is not
a dream, it can happen. I cite my own childhood as an example.
When I was growing up, I had no concept of race as some magical
thing which forever divided people up. Some may call this
ignorance, but I call it innocence and purity of youth. On my
street there lived a particular girl who just happened to be black.
Once, we were bickering about something inconsequential as children
occasionally do. I noticed that she was wearing a sweatshirt that
had a map of Africa, in "African Nationalism" colors. I was a bit
of a "geography buff" and the kids on my street knew this. So to be
smart, I said, "At least I don’t wear stupid maps of random
continents on my clothes." She burst into rage and put me in a
headlock (I never claimed to be a workout buff). For the life of me
I didn’t know why she erupted!
When I was in junior high, I realized that one boy whom I had
known since age 7 or 8 happened to be Asian. Even then, I thought
of the Asian students as friends just like any other students. It
was no big deal. I remember that many of my friends were Hispanic.
It never crossed my mind to look at them that way. They were
diverse individuals, not racial classifications to me. I remember
when Proposition 187 passed while I was in high school. There were
some Hispanic groundskeepers and teachers, but I never connected
these individuals (mostly Americans, as far as I knew) to
immigration. There was one teacher, though, that we did lightly
joke about. We said the INS was coming and dragging her off – she
was from Germany, and was in reality a very nice teacher. I am the
type of person who associated the English with foreign while not
thinking the same about Hispanics and Asians that I knew! Once, I
learned that this one girl I knew was three-fourths Comanche. At
the time I found this to be a little interesting, but gave it very
little thought for the rest of the years which I knew her.
This way of looking at people of various races was completely
alien to me until I came to UCLA! Here I find racial SAGs (Student
Advocacy Groups) shouting mantras about racial unity. Here I have
found hatred in people’s voices (of ALL races). It is not ironic
that the place that shouts out equality and justice the most turns
out to be the most hate-filled? The more race is stressed, the
greater the racism spews forth. The secret to ending racism is so
clear! We must abandon this classification of race, and look at
ourselves and others as the individuals that we are, as the
children unsullied by this world do!