The evolution of our world has caused us to become spoilt, unappreciative and selfish, our main priority is personal privileges and profits: anything or anyone who is different from us, unfamiliar, is considered wrong, unacceptable “ less worthy”.
What kind of social philosophy is that ? Unfortunately one that dominates the Western world and causes people to live in harsh, depressing and completely unfair conditions with limited possibilities of succeeding in life, simply because the so called cultured society decided that they don’t fit into the restricted categories of idealistic perfection which in fact, ironically enough we ourselves don’t belong to either.
Racism is reinforced and perpetuated through the media in subliminal ways: lyrics of songs, poems, movies, literature, these are all means of communication which influence the public and fortify negative thought patterns by glorifying racist behaviour.
Racism has been alive throughout our history from the Ku- Klux clan in the 1900’s who persecuted and murdered blacks and Catholics, to slavery, right up to present day with conflicts between different beliefs.
After the tragedy on September 11th that occurred in America but effected the soul of the entire world, and left us with a profound sadness that will change our lives forever, we discovered that among the six thousand people who died there were Chinese, Blacks, Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. My question is: Does a tragedy of such drastic scale have to happen in order to make the world united in mourning these people ?
Now that they are dead, they are respected and compared to heroes and yet the same people, the same parents, the same children, the same workers would still be subjected to our racist views if they were alive. Racist views are perpetuated without limitations.Now anyone associated with the Muslim faith is a target both physically and verbally of racial abuse because people affiliate them with the terrorist acts.
I think we should all take a moment out of our busy schedules to contemplate the fact that it took the death of six thousand innocent people to become conscious that compassion and respect for others is vital in order to create a safer world.
I believe proper education and open minded ideas should be instilled to people from a young age and the message that individuality has to be respected and recognised is the key to unified world-wide harmony.
By Allegra Beck
