Monday, 31 October 2011

Being Discriminating

I woke up this morning to this story on the morning radio. For those who don't like to follow links, I'll summarize. Essentially, there is a professional hockey player who is being accused of racism because he dressed up as the rapper Jay-Z for Halloween, complete with make-up to make his skin darker.

NHL player Raffi Torres in costume
with his girlfriend
Honestly?! Racism? I think his costume is great. He looks a lot like Jay-Z, and he is a self-professed "big fan", so I doubt he was doing anything to make Jay-Z look bad. People dress as celebrities all the time for Halloween; just because they're of a different skin colour, does that automatically make them off-limits?

This points to a larger trend that I've been seeing, not only with skin colour, but with gender/sex as well. It seems that people are so careful to be seen as accepting and tolerant, that they try to pretend that differences don't exist at all, even ones as evident as skin colour.

I've had people tell me that I'm being racist, or that I'm discriminating when I am describing someone and I mention their skin colour. Literally, I was describing a girl going through sorority recruitment to one of the members of my sorority. I described the girl as black, with huge curly hair, and my sorority sister called me racist.

Why don't we take a journey through the dictionary to see if I was racist.

racism (from World Dictionary at Dictionary.com)
noun
1. the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others
2. abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief 
Based on this dictionary definition, I was not being racist. To merely point out a difference does not imply superiority in any way. While we've got the dictionary open, why don't we look up another one of those great insults - "you're discriminating."
discriminate (from dictionary.com)
verb (used without object)
1.
to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality.
2.
to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately.
verb (used with object)
3.
to make or constitute a distinction in or between; differentiate.
4.
to note or distinguish as different.
So, according to this definition, it can imply two different things. The first definition, most people would agree is wrong. You should look at each person as an individual. However, it is perfectly valid to point out differences.

Look at men and women. To discriminate against a women in the sense of the first definition would be to say that "you're a woman, all women belong in the kitchen, therefore, you belong in the kitchen." This is not taking into account who that woman is at all; maybe she is called to religious life, or single life. To be discriminating in the other three definitions would be to say "You're a woman. You are different than a man." Pointing out differences does not mean that you are decrying said differences.

So just like some people would like to pretend that skin colours are all the same, people would like to pretend that men and women are the same. News flash, they're not. Ladies, being different from a man is not the same as being less valuable than a man.

My University President got in HUGE trouble from a large sector of the student population when she made a remark that she is advocating for white males. She made that remark because there are more women than men in the University and more non-white men than white men. She didn't mean to say that she is advocating for white men at the expense of women and minority groups. She herself is a non-white woman who holds an engineering degree among others and is one of the highest earning University Presidents in Canada.

Along the same vein, I was part of a program in high school geared towards helping women go into non-traditional career paths (like engineering, technology and science). Now I'm a music major in an education degree, who wants to be a stay-at-home-mom. Not exactly blazing new trails, but it's what I want to do, and what I believe God is calling me to.

Differences are great. God created us to be wonderful in whoever we are. The only thing He calls for us to be the same in, is that we are all called to be Saints.

2 comments:

  1. This might be a hard concept for you to understand, but "black face" as it is called has been around forever and is not kind. If you want to portray someone fine, but why the need to add on makeup? If you watch through almost any 1920's 1930's genre of movies you will find they did a lot of black face and minstrel shows that were basically mocking African Americans. They were often portrayed as savages, beastly, and less than human.Putting on black face today relates back to it and the same goes for any race. I may be called too sensitive or politically correct, but black face and anything to mock any race makes me cringe as a Christian.

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  2. Hi Lexie,

    I've never heard of blackface before now. I'm Canadian, and while I won't bury my head in the sand and say that racism doesn't exist here, we don't have quite the history with people of African descent that the US does. Actually here it was more likely that they would be mocking Aboriginals than African-Canadians.

    I'm sorry if I offended you, or anyone; that definitely was not my intention. I just did not see how Raffi Torres was mocking Jay-Z by dressing up like him. I understand how it could be construed that way, now that I know a bit more of the history. I still don't think his intention was to mock African-Americans though.

    I find now (at least in the people I see) that people are afraid to talk about differences, for fear of being thought of as being racist. That is a far cry from saying that people should lighten up if something actually is intended to mock a characteristic. But thanks for your comment!

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