For many people factors relating to their social identity such as race, colour and national origin become ‘differences that make a difference’.
During the last fifty five years since the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the international community has made some important advances in the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. And yes this has helped, progress has been made but yet the dream of a world free of racial hatred and bias remains only half fulfilled.
I believe if the world makes an effort, together, we can embody a new spirit, based on the shared conviction that we are all members of one huge human family.
It seems that racism mainly strikes lower class, uneducated people. Many people believe that this is the case because all around them, they see richer people. They don't want to see people of their OWN race richer than them, so they ignore them. But when they see someone of another race, richer than them, they become angry, and the richer people become their target. It’s like what happened during the holocaust.
Hitler was a racist. Most of the German people were poor, not very well educated and angry. They wanted someone to blame for their troubles. The Jewish people in Germany were hard workers, generally pretty rich and they were different. So, they became Hitler’s target.
Adolph Hitler was one of the worlds biggest Megalomaniacs he was solely responsible for the death of millions of Jewish men, women, and children. It wasn’t that he actually killed all those people it’s the fact that he brainwashed then ordered numerous German soldiers to do his dirty work.
There is absolutely no logic in that. Wealth belongs to whoever has worked hard for it. But you try explaining that to a poor, uneducated person. It doesn't work.
Then there is the most recognized racist groups in the world the KKK. To join the KKK you must meet some requirements. Here is a brief overview of them:
Only pure White Christian people of non-Jewish, non-Negro, non-Asian descent who are at least eighteen years old and who pledge to dedicate their lives to this cause can enter the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Those under the age of eighteen can join the Klan Youth Corp. with parental consent, and then become a full member of the Knights when they turn eighteen. They can practice all the necessary skill for when they are older, like the proper technique to burn a black man on a cross. The KKK has a motto: Equal Rights for All, Special Privileges for None. If this is their motto then why do they have the right to kill a man because of his colour? Does his colour some how give him a special privilege. Think a bout it! Why must people hit people because of the colour of their skin? What gives them that right? And furthermore what do they have against the skin colour of a Black person, a White person an Asian person or any other person?
Racism, as an idea and a practice, has evolved and continues to do so. Many of us today conceptualize racism in terms of what it was, prejudice and physically violent behavior, and hence, in the absence of such practice, see no racial problems. Although violence and bigotry is still very real, racism is not limited to these things. Like sexism it involves more than conscious feelings of superiority on the part of some individuals; racism exists as systems of domination and oppression which continue to perpetuate themselves even after individuals cease to be conscious of the harm they do. The violence becomes part of regular practice, is "justified," and then slips into invisibility.
Racism will stay on our earth, until we can educate every single person in this world. People will never understand that all humans are alike inside until we can take the last illiterate person and teach them to read. Because with education comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes tolerance.