SHIVANI // JUNIOR WRITER- You’re Indian, right? Do you eat people’s hearts? I heard that Indians do that. These were the words of a classmate of mine in the first grade. My response? Why yes, of course, my amma is going to have a delicious, steaming plate of human hearts sitting on our dining table when I go home today. Of course, at that point, she couldn’t really understand that what she had said was extremely offensive. She was just curious, I suppose, as all children are. Back then, I was really hurt by what she said, because then I got a lot of weird looks from friends and the like. I went home to my amma and cried to her about it, and she told me that kids are always like that and that it would get better with time.
Yet here I am almost eight years later, and I’m scratching my head at the boy in my 8th-grade history class who called me out on the “stupid dot on my head” and asked me why I would wear it to an “American school.” And people actually excuse his insolence by saying that boys will be boys. I’m absolutely flabbergasted when a classmate of mine posts a picture of herself squinting her eyes and calling herself “ching ching.” I see a boy in one of my extracurriculars who makes jokes about a noisy dog near his house, and how he told it that he would “feed it to the Asians” unless it stopped barking.
Insensitivity towards cultures these days is way too smoothed over, and some people even think that it’s not even a problem.
These days, you’ll rarely see people who actually clearly imply that they’re racist. Instead, you’ll hear, ”I don’t see color,” or another really washed out phrase that shows that they couldn’t care less. Amongst many, there are also people who generalize races, for example, “all Asians are smart.” And let’s not forget the ever present cultural appropriation, which makes you wonder, are those even real terms? Yes, they are. We will be considering the following areas today as we look at how to solve this problem: First is failing to recognize and acknowledge problems that certain races experience. Second, we will look at racial stereotypes. Lastly, we will look at cultural appropriation.
First, we must look at the part of the population that chooses not to acknowledge that there is a problem. You have people much like children playing hide and go seek. They close their eyes really tight and slap their hands over their ears, and poof! You don’t exist anymore. Funnily enough, people think that this is a stellar solution to fixing cultural insensitivity. Some people think that if they say that they don’t see color, then that means that racism just magically disappears. That doesn’t help at all. In fact, that just makes it seem like these people don’t care enough to address racism, or worse: that they truly believe that not seeing color is going to fix things. In America, we need to see color. We should celebrate our differences. It is important to see that people are suffering every day, instead of pretending that everything is okay by sweeping it under the carpet. Racism is a real problem. Of course, some people don’t want to irritate other people by speaking out, but it’s time to stand up and address the issue. Blogger Roni Faida writes, “When you tell me you don’t see my color, you are basically telling me that you don’t see a huge part of who I am and that doesn’t help me. What I want you to say is, ‘I see your color. And it’s beautiful.’” She goes on to mention that because we live in America, we should be able to see color. “Saying you don’t see color stops us from having discussions that really matter. It stops us from being able to talk to one another about how difficult it can be to live in this country.” People also need to see that they see color, even when they say that they don’t. It’s quite obvious that people say that to assure themselves that they are not racist. For example, 80% of stop and frisks performed by police were on Latino and Black people, which is a stark difference from the 8% stop and frisks on white people. It’s just the stigma and negative connotation that people think of. The same people who are okay with that, also say that they don’t see color. How is that not seeing color? This is why that phrase is wrong.
Something that I’ve heard many people saying, “Some racial stereotypes are positive!” as a desperate attempt to make it seem like they are not racist. NO. No, racial stereotypes are in fact negative. Don’t just think that the stereotype that all Asians are smart is a good stereotype. Because when we work so hard on our English report or our math assignment, when we write until our hands are cramping, when we study beyond our limit, when we get that perfect A grade for our hard work, it’s passed off as nothing because “all Asians are smart, so you didn’t really put any effort into it, you just have a talent!”
And of course, we have cultural appropriation. The author of "Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law" defines cultural appropriation as taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. Another thing is disrespecting sacred items of a culture. I’m a Hindu, which means I’m polytheistic; I worship many gods. These are our gods, whom we worship, whom we respect, as they created us. So you could imagine my horror at logging on to my Tumblr account and scroll through my feed to see a picture of a blonde girl smoking a cigarette in front of Ganesh, one of our gods. The caption reads, “my aesthetic.” Basically, this girl thought it would look cool on her blog to have a picture of her clearly disrespecting a god in a place of worship. Still don’t completely understand yet? Here’s what cultural appropriation is. When Selena Gomez can wear a bindi in her costumes as a fashion statement and people applaud her and call her beautiful, but when I, a Hindu, wear it to school in observance of Deepavali, a Hindu celebration, I get called an idiot. When people of color are mocked for their big lips, something that is beautiful and makes them THEM, something that is genetic, that runs in their veins, that is a part of them, makes them whole. Then Kylie Jenner gets fake big lips, and suddenly, wow big lips are beautiful! Let’s all get implants and try to be like her, but we’ll still make fun of POC who have big lips. The problem with cultural appropriation is that most people don’t understand the weight of it.
A culture has things that make it unique, for example, its clothing, and music. So when someone else who is not from that particular culture takes that and makes it their own, they’re basically erasing all the hard work that other people put into it. Especially if they are the dominant race in a region. For example, people that are white in America. Right now, White Americans account for 69% of the population. So when they adopt a culture and appropriate it, they are essentially taking a culture’s hard work, and it’s legacy, and turning it into a costume. Speaking of costumes, this happens a lot during Halloween, when someone wants to be a geisha for Halloween, it’s not just a costume. It’s a tradition that’s been around since feudal times, and it’s not a costume for someone to buy from party city for 30 bucks. Or the redskins’ symbol. It’s not supposed to be used like that. So when a dominant culture appropriates a culture of the minority, they are essentially silencing that culture’s uniqueness. Nadra Kareem writes, “In the United States, cultural appropriation almost always involves members of the dominant culture (or those who identify with it) “borrowing” from the cultures of minority groups. African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and indigenous peoples generally tend to emerge as the groups targeted for cultural appropriation. Black music and dance, Native American fashions, decorations and cultural symbols and Asian martial arts and dress have all fallen prey to cultural appropriation.”
So here we have all these problems, and yet, some people draw a blank on how to fix it. First, just don’t do it. Just refrain from saying things like “we are all one race, and /I don’t see color”. Educate yourself. Google It! It’s not that hard. It will literally take you as long as a Justin Bieber song for you to learn how to be more sensitive to cultures. Ask someone for insight. When you spend 90% of your day scrolling through Instagram, or Twitter, or whatever social media you might have or use, search up a tag like cultural appropriation, and you will be able to learn everything on that subject just as easily as reading your favorite celebrity’s post about their lunch. Don’t just stand there when you see racism or insensitivity towards cultures. Point it out, kindly. Chances are, that person probably doesn’t know that what they’re saying or doing is bad. This is why people need to be careful of cultural insensitivity and racism. Don’t say that you don’t see color. Think of a culture before you appropriate it, and don’t think that racial stereotypes are okay. Most of all, just think about what you’re going to do or say before you do or say it. That helps a lot more than you would think.
Yet here I am almost eight years later, and I’m scratching my head at the boy in my 8th-grade history class who called me out on the “stupid dot on my head” and asked me why I would wear it to an “American school.” And people actually excuse his insolence by saying that boys will be boys. I’m absolutely flabbergasted when a classmate of mine posts a picture of herself squinting her eyes and calling herself “ching ching.” I see a boy in one of my extracurriculars who makes jokes about a noisy dog near his house, and how he told it that he would “feed it to the Asians” unless it stopped barking.
Insensitivity towards cultures these days is way too smoothed over, and some people even think that it’s not even a problem.
These days, you’ll rarely see people who actually clearly imply that they’re racist. Instead, you’ll hear, ”I don’t see color,” or another really washed out phrase that shows that they couldn’t care less. Amongst many, there are also people who generalize races, for example, “all Asians are smart.” And let’s not forget the ever present cultural appropriation, which makes you wonder, are those even real terms? Yes, they are. We will be considering the following areas today as we look at how to solve this problem: First is failing to recognize and acknowledge problems that certain races experience. Second, we will look at racial stereotypes. Lastly, we will look at cultural appropriation.
First, we must look at the part of the population that chooses not to acknowledge that there is a problem. You have people much like children playing hide and go seek. They close their eyes really tight and slap their hands over their ears, and poof! You don’t exist anymore. Funnily enough, people think that this is a stellar solution to fixing cultural insensitivity. Some people think that if they say that they don’t see color, then that means that racism just magically disappears. That doesn’t help at all. In fact, that just makes it seem like these people don’t care enough to address racism, or worse: that they truly believe that not seeing color is going to fix things. In America, we need to see color. We should celebrate our differences. It is important to see that people are suffering every day, instead of pretending that everything is okay by sweeping it under the carpet. Racism is a real problem. Of course, some people don’t want to irritate other people by speaking out, but it’s time to stand up and address the issue. Blogger Roni Faida writes, “When you tell me you don’t see my color, you are basically telling me that you don’t see a huge part of who I am and that doesn’t help me. What I want you to say is, ‘I see your color. And it’s beautiful.’” She goes on to mention that because we live in America, we should be able to see color. “Saying you don’t see color stops us from having discussions that really matter. It stops us from being able to talk to one another about how difficult it can be to live in this country.” People also need to see that they see color, even when they say that they don’t. It’s quite obvious that people say that to assure themselves that they are not racist. For example, 80% of stop and frisks performed by police were on Latino and Black people, which is a stark difference from the 8% stop and frisks on white people. It’s just the stigma and negative connotation that people think of. The same people who are okay with that, also say that they don’t see color. How is that not seeing color? This is why that phrase is wrong.
Something that I’ve heard many people saying, “Some racial stereotypes are positive!” as a desperate attempt to make it seem like they are not racist. NO. No, racial stereotypes are in fact negative. Don’t just think that the stereotype that all Asians are smart is a good stereotype. Because when we work so hard on our English report or our math assignment, when we write until our hands are cramping, when we study beyond our limit, when we get that perfect A grade for our hard work, it’s passed off as nothing because “all Asians are smart, so you didn’t really put any effort into it, you just have a talent!”
And of course, we have cultural appropriation. The author of "Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law" defines cultural appropriation as taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. Another thing is disrespecting sacred items of a culture. I’m a Hindu, which means I’m polytheistic; I worship many gods. These are our gods, whom we worship, whom we respect, as they created us. So you could imagine my horror at logging on to my Tumblr account and scroll through my feed to see a picture of a blonde girl smoking a cigarette in front of Ganesh, one of our gods. The caption reads, “my aesthetic.” Basically, this girl thought it would look cool on her blog to have a picture of her clearly disrespecting a god in a place of worship. Still don’t completely understand yet? Here’s what cultural appropriation is. When Selena Gomez can wear a bindi in her costumes as a fashion statement and people applaud her and call her beautiful, but when I, a Hindu, wear it to school in observance of Deepavali, a Hindu celebration, I get called an idiot. When people of color are mocked for their big lips, something that is beautiful and makes them THEM, something that is genetic, that runs in their veins, that is a part of them, makes them whole. Then Kylie Jenner gets fake big lips, and suddenly, wow big lips are beautiful! Let’s all get implants and try to be like her, but we’ll still make fun of POC who have big lips. The problem with cultural appropriation is that most people don’t understand the weight of it.
A culture has things that make it unique, for example, its clothing, and music. So when someone else who is not from that particular culture takes that and makes it their own, they’re basically erasing all the hard work that other people put into it. Especially if they are the dominant race in a region. For example, people that are white in America. Right now, White Americans account for 69% of the population. So when they adopt a culture and appropriate it, they are essentially taking a culture’s hard work, and it’s legacy, and turning it into a costume. Speaking of costumes, this happens a lot during Halloween, when someone wants to be a geisha for Halloween, it’s not just a costume. It’s a tradition that’s been around since feudal times, and it’s not a costume for someone to buy from party city for 30 bucks. Or the redskins’ symbol. It’s not supposed to be used like that. So when a dominant culture appropriates a culture of the minority, they are essentially silencing that culture’s uniqueness. Nadra Kareem writes, “In the United States, cultural appropriation almost always involves members of the dominant culture (or those who identify with it) “borrowing” from the cultures of minority groups. African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and indigenous peoples generally tend to emerge as the groups targeted for cultural appropriation. Black music and dance, Native American fashions, decorations and cultural symbols and Asian martial arts and dress have all fallen prey to cultural appropriation.”
So here we have all these problems, and yet, some people draw a blank on how to fix it. First, just don’t do it. Just refrain from saying things like “we are all one race, and /I don’t see color”. Educate yourself. Google It! It’s not that hard. It will literally take you as long as a Justin Bieber song for you to learn how to be more sensitive to cultures. Ask someone for insight. When you spend 90% of your day scrolling through Instagram, or Twitter, or whatever social media you might have or use, search up a tag like cultural appropriation, and you will be able to learn everything on that subject just as easily as reading your favorite celebrity’s post about their lunch. Don’t just stand there when you see racism or insensitivity towards cultures. Point it out, kindly. Chances are, that person probably doesn’t know that what they’re saying or doing is bad. This is why people need to be careful of cultural insensitivity and racism. Don’t say that you don’t see color. Think of a culture before you appropriate it, and don’t think that racial stereotypes are okay. Most of all, just think about what you’re going to do or say before you do or say it. That helps a lot more than you would think.
Shivani is a freshman attending Lovejoy High School. She plans to present this excerpt at a local debate competition, so wish her luck!
