hardboiled blog

Yesterday during my ASAM 141 class (Law in the Asian American Community) we had an extensive discussion on hate crimes, hate speech, and just good ‘ole racism. It was a timely discussion, for me, after seeing some particularly hateful and racist things on someone’s facebook recently. Essentially, what I had saw, was an Asian American student here on campus putting up photos with hateful racist comments about the black community. I won’t go into details here because it’s a tricky situation, but after seeing that album posted publicly, with comments ranging from “hahahahaha” to “you should post more pictures,” I felt disgusted.

I get the feeling a lot of times that people are certain that racism is erased from our more modern contemporary progressive times, and that any forms of racism that do show up are just the anomaly: a rare incident by people who are not up with the times. But that thought is naive, and just plain ignorant. Here is an article we were discussing in class. Note the date of this article. Is that not ridiculous?

Although I’m a firm believer in the notion that racism nowadays appears in more subtle forms, with these discussions in class and personal incidents of racism manifesting itself into hateful actions, I can’t help but accept the fact that there is still hatred and racism within the minds of many in America.  It’s so messed up, because it’s wrong. In my heart there is a deep aversion to that type of senseless hatred.

So let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that our culture is more colorblind nowadays and that minorities who are complaining about racism are just “being sensitive” or “playing the race card.” Let’s not claim that these thoughts and actions are the outliers. All of us must accept and develop an awareness for these things, or else they’ll just continue to be perpetuated in society.

Jeez, racism friggin’ sucks.