July 27th, 2012 at 05:51pm
Racism is depressing, and it's sad how it still exists today.
But in my opinion, people can't be completely blamed for being racist. Personal preferences are something we don't have complete control over; people preferring light skin over dark skin is similar to people preferring tall people over short people. Skin and height are mostly beyond all control. But people will forever be inclined to their own personal preferences. It's just sad that the preferences aren't balanced. Maybe it's because of the media, feeding us with ideas of what 'beauty' is supposed to look like. Which is just unfortunate, and stupid, and really unfair.
As for the ghetto girl thing, that's stereotyping, which also, I think, occurs in all of us to a certain extent. And it happens to everyone. Blonde girls are dumb, asians are good at math, gay guys like shopping and fashion. We naturally assume certain 'types' of people have certain characteristics because the majority (or at least, what we believe is the majority) of that 'type' of people do. And of course there are exceptions, but there are always exceptions, so we tend to just associate certain characteristics with groups of people...
I guess the real difference here is what extent we allow our judgement, opinions and choices to be swayed by our natural preferences and associations. So I guess the real sad part here is how so many people allow themselves to be swayed so much by them when it comes to other people of other races/etc.
As in, I think it's alright to say I don't really like dark-skinned girls, but people shouldn't say dark girls are ugly or I don't date dark-skinned girls. I don't think it's wrong to have a tendency to date white girls, but I think it's wrong if you won't even give a black girl a chance simply because she has dark skin.
I can honestly say that I have a bit of a thing for fair-skinned guys and girls. But I don't discriminate against those whose skin is relatively more tan.
I just hope one day the world will have much fewer ignorant people who judge others based on appearances and false assumptions. I hope one day in the near future, all these people will wake up and realize how stupid they're acting.
Though, I'm an Asian girl from Malaysia, a country that prides itself on its multi-racial society. I believe all of us are 'racist' to a certain extent, but I think most of us (or at the very least, most of the people around me) don't really discriminate against other races. I think we naturally tend to befriend those of our own race more, but only because we tend to get along better due to similar cultural backgrounds, languages etc. But at the same time, we don't purposely decide not to befriend someone just because said person is a different race.
Sigh. Idk. I wasn't really trying to make a point. I was just ranting, mostly to myself I guess, lol.
The Hispanic community is kind of like that too. I mean, I've always known that and I mean, when I was little, it didn't really bother me until I noticed that pretty much every one was lighter than me and I kind of live in one of those towns where people tend to judge you if you're not 'white' or whatever and it kind of just made me not really like myself, and on top of that, the Hispanic community is kind of depreciating towards people who aren't light or caramel skinned or whatever. And my mom is light skinned and my dad isn't, so whenever I'm around her family sometimes I feel slightly out of place.
About the kids at school: people have honestly told me to my face that they aren't in the slightest attracted to people that are dark skinned.
I mean, we're all just PEOPLE damn it, and I don't really know why color has to matter. I really, really don't. But like the person below me said, sometimes it really is a matter of personal preference (for some people) and for others it may very well be a racism issue.
Do I think it's right? No. Do I wish things would change? Yeah. But am I going to like let it completely take over my life? HELL NO. But I respect you like writing about it and stuff because I really do think that people don't understand how it is sometimes and how easily one starts hating oneself because one isn't a certain color or shade or something.