Blog Topic #2

What does it mean to be a racist? If we laugh at a racist joke are we racists? What is the connection between racism and the act of discrimination?

To be racist means that a person has a hate toward someone of another race, or even ethnicity and culture.  These people feel that, in most cases, they are the superior race to the undesirable group or social category.  Human rights should be given to only those of the selected race.  In our history, there have been thousands of incidents of racism even though these ideas were held by the majority.  Slavery, the Holocaust, and harassment of Native Americans are some of the more significant events that were spurred by hatred of one race from another.  Through civil rights movements, there has been a huge improvement in the way that races treat each other.  Even though there were these great achievements such as the outcome of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, Rosa Parks actions, and the great speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., racism is still present today in the minds of citizens all over the world.  There are many ways of expressing racism including violent crimes, ideas kept to one’s self, and jokes that discriminate against race.

If a person were to laugh at a racist joke, then are they racist?  I think that there are many reasons why people would laugh at such humor.  One may be that they are indeed racist and view the joke as a way to make themselves feel better and break down the undesirable group.  Laughter can be brought about in many forms.  Some laugh when they are nervous, sad, confused, or happy.  This can be the same idea.  Confusion can make some laugh when they really don’t know the true meaning of a joke or where it originated from.  When one does not know what the true meaning of a joke is or they just laugh because everyone else is, they may not be racist.  Another reason could be that they are nervous or uncomfortable and do not know how to react.  The exact opposite could be that one is laughing at the fact that the stereotype portrayed in the joke is extremely inaccurate and the person telling the joke has a poor sense of humor.  There is also the idea that someone will laugh because they want to please the person who is telling the joke or try to look cool around them no matter what the content is.

            Discrimination is telling the difference between things such as a person’s race or skin color.  In differentiating between those things, one may feel that there should be a difference in the rights or treatment that a person should get.  Different things, such as what was listed, can scare people and when you’re scared of a bug, you kill it or run screaming.  When there are too many spiders, you cannot live your life in fear so you have to suppress them.  This is where hatred is fueled when it come to things that are different or out of the ordinary.  Until people do not discriminate and accept the differences, racism will still be present.