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.

Tolerance

So I spent all of last night trying to write an insightful and deep blog post that would inspire a nation and send my readership soaring. But I couldn't do it. I started about half a dozen different topics but the words didn't come. So now I will try again.

I follow a blog called A Woman's Place and she directed me to a blog that just made me shake my head. As a run down, this Catholic woman doesn't like the public displays of affection between gay people because she wants to keep her children innocent for awhile longer. While I don't agree with everything the woman is saying in this blog, because I probably would have used the moment as a teachable moment had my (future) children asked, she absolutely doesn't deserve the onslaught of hatred that she is getting in the comments. People are calling her a c--- and a b---- and saying that she is a bigot and intolerant.

But my question is: when did tolerance become a virtue? When did tolerance become something to strive for in itself? I looked up "tolerance" in the dictionary and came up with these definitions:

tol·er·ance
noun

1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc.,differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc.,foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
4. the act or capacity of enduring; endurance. 

In synonyms it had things like compassion, understanding and benevolence. The word that gets me in that definition is the word "permissive". I understand that people can do what they want, but I don't have to approve of it. But that word seems to imply that I need to approve of what people do, regardless of what I believe is true.

This is something I ran into a lot in my Education Ethics class as well, where many of my fellow students were saying that we need to teach and foster a tolerant environment. But people seem to confuse treating all with dignity and respect with supporting everything that a person does. I can love somebody and not approve of what they do. Also, I find a lot of the time religious people are called to be more tolerant, while the tolerance towards religious beliefs becomes less.

In my ethics class we studied a case where a teacher was suspended for one month for writing into a newspaper the Church's beliefs of homosexuality. He said that "gay sex is inherently disordered, gay sex is risky, and gay sex is a sin." All three are true. The purpose of sex is twofold: to unite two people into one flesh in marriage, and to procreate. Gay sex cannot do this--it goes against the purpose of sex so it is disordered. As for the risk factor, STDs are still the highest among gay people, as well as anal cancer among those who participate in sodomy. Gay sex separates you from God. A woman in my class called this hate speech. There is nothing hateful about it. The teacher was not saying that gay people are evil people, but called the actions they partook in immoral and risky. He was not hateful, he did not say that we should tar and feather gay people, but merely pointed out that they make some choices which, although our society likes to say there is nothing wrong with them, they are indeed wrong.

Tolerance is a way to work around all the different beliefs of people. I will tolerate the beliefs of people, I will treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve. But I will not pretend to support or approve something which I believe to be wrong.

False Teachings

Few things get me more riled up than when people spout false teachings and call them the "Christian" belief. Like this guy. First he talks about the Bible being a source of good, but then he says he doubts that it is  the absolute Word of God because of the so-called irreconcilable contradictions. He says: "How does one rectify the two images of God, the Old Testament vs. the New Testament. Both versions cannot coexist."  Actually, they can and do co-exist. I think of it as our image of our parents. Many of us see our parents as bigger than life and close to superheroes when we are young. Then as we get older we understand that our parents, while still good people, are not the superheroes we thought them to once be. Does this mean that we were wrong when we were young, or that our parents are now somehow different people? Of course not, just our understanding of them grows as we ourselves grow. Likewise, our understanding of God has developed as we as a society have developed. 


Not everything in his article is completely wrong. I agree with this sentiment, at least most of it: "Simply put, Christian means someone who believes in the teachings of Christ. However, I go beyond the traditional lines and I advocate a return to the simplicity of Christ's teachings, which are to basically love God and love each other. I believe that knowledge will help bring you closer to God, where faith alone may not be sufficient." 


However, then he goes into a part about how Christ was no more divine than the rest of us. "[Yes, Christ is divine], and so are all of God's people. Again, each person carries a spark of God within, this is our birthright to divinity. Not everyone will fully mature their spark of God. Whereas some, like Christ, will evolve themselves to full measure and become active agents of God. This state of grace is closer to the typical idea of divinity, yet we can all achieve it."  Basically saying he was just a good man whose life we should emulate. Except, there is a flaw in that logic. People don't die following the teachings of a good man. Yet thousands of people have willingly given their lives to profess that Jesus is God.


As I was reading the article, I was reminded of yesterday's Gospel reading. "Who do people say I am?" Peter said that Christ was the Son of the Living God and was rewarded with the leadership of Christ's Church, the Church that Hades cannot prevail against. It makes me sad when people try to find any other explanation for who Christ is than this.