What is Racism?
It is a term given to a belief, belief in which a majority of people possessing similar traits of belief over the other group in regards of their appearances. These appearances can correspond to their caste, color, origin, gender etc. It is nothing new, and is as old as our calendar. Also, it is not safe to say that racism doesn’t exist in any certain part of the globe, it is just over the media in some countries. Countries like USA, Australia, India, UK etc are all in the news constantly for some or the other wrong reasons related to racism.
Racism on our planet:
We all know, in many parts of India, we still don’t promote girls and even kill girl child. India is not only racist in gender, but also in casteism, origin, creed and profession.
Nevertheless, I am sure, the Australian incident of racism is still not blurred from our memories. Yes, you are right, I am talking about the 2009 Melbourne and Sydney incident for which both Australian and Indian media publicised many reports of crimes against Indian students by locals. There were many protests too, regarding the same in Australia by both Indians and locals. According to a report submitted to Indian Parliament by Indian overseas ministry in 2010 stated for 152 attacks.
Australia is also famous for most common racism in the world, skin color. An article was published by “The Guardian” titled “It’s black and white: racism in Australia is common and accepted”.
Let’s talk about a recent incident, that happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; “Death George Floyd”. George was a 46yrs old African American, held by a white cop (Derek Chauvin) who pressed knee on George’s neck for about 9 minutes, causing him to suffer and die. While the cop was kneeing his neck, George was handcuffed and and faced down the street. Floyd straight went into cardiac arrest and declared dead by the nearby hospital. There were other officers too, present at the scene but just preventing the crowd from intervening. According to the cops, Floyd resisted the arrest but the cctv footage at the market falsified the police’s claims. Although there’s much more to this story, but we can’t deny the racism involved in it.
“The Guardian” in an article “The racism that killed George Floyd was built in Britain” enlightened on the incident on several more similar incidents of past in US, UK and Australia. There have been a “Black Lives Matter” protest in London on June 3, alarmed by the May 25th incident of George Floyd in USA. “Black Lives Matter”, what started as a protest is now a movement, garnering support from all over the world with people donating to anti-racism charities and bail-funds for people arrested in this protest, also signing petitions world-wide to bring guilty (racist) cops to justice. “The Independent” even published an article “BLACK LIVES MATTER: 10 ANTI-RACISM CHARITIES IN THE UK YOU CAN DONATE TO”, highlighting 10 anti-racism charities in UK, working and helping collecting donations from supporters for the bail fund of arrested protesters in UK.
We have seen renowned sports person and celebrities coming out and offer their thoughts on the incident and support for the support of the black man who was killed in police custody. Thierry Henry, a legendary footballer of France and Arsenal, Michael Jordan (Basketball legend) and Lewis Hamilton (current F1 Champion) came out on twitter in support of George and tweeted against such racism.
“We do urgently need change, we demand change and most importantly, we deserve change. Make it happen, now. Enough is enough,” Henry.
Henry further tweeted “Why is this still happening in 2020? Why do the same racists applaud any ethnic minority who plays for the team they support but abuse the same minorities on the street?”
This is not the only reported racism incident of USA in recent times, there were a few more from the corona virus pandemic where white people were given more importance over black or asian ethnicity in admissions in hospitals or for treatments by doctors. I remember the issue came to light in world news when USCIRF demoted India to lowest rank of CPC with China, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria( etc. USCIRF is *U.S Commission on International Religious Freedom and CPC is Countries of Particular Concern. I still remember the interviews of Afro-Americans outside hospitals, denied admissions over white people for medical attention and to cover up US downgrades India to lowest ranks of world religious freedom index. But as they say, Karma hits back, and it did. Just in a month’s time, US once again reported an incident, questioning their own rank in USCIRF. The report is available for everyone online, with one years incidents, backgrounds, findings, violence, harassments, witnesses, policies, view points etc on such matters for each country in the lowest two ranks and without any surprise, US is not even in the list with so many reported incidents while UK was just a mention for minor incidents.
The overall point is Racism was always there, throughout the centuries and now it is high time. We should not forget about all these and We should all stand together…
This article was contributed by Prakhar Kasera, owner of Eight bit journey and the last paragraph was added by me.
Picture courtesy: The Quint, Unsplash and Twitter