{"id":101,"date":"2015-05-29T11:43:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T14:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/?p=101"},"modified":"2024-04-26T19:50:20","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T22:50:20","slug":"we-have-created-racism-it-can-be-destroyed-down-with-racist-jokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/2015\/05\/29\/we-have-created-racism-it-can-be-destroyed-down-with-racist-jokes\/","title":{"rendered":"We have created racism. It can be destroyed; down with racist jokes!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_counters\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/lang\/pt\/share-small.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:2px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_c=new Array(\"twitter\",\"facebook_like\",\"facebook_send\",\"pinterest\",\"email\",\"print\",\"linkedin\");var hupso_counters_lang = \"pt_BR\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"blogdootavio\";var hupso_url_c=\"\";var hupso_title_c=\"We%20have%20created%20racism.%20It%20can%20be%20destroyed%3B%20down%20with%20racist%20jokes%21\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/counters.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Examples of racism happen daily in the world. This cruel picture has haunted black people for centuries. Because of that, many have the false and pessimist idea that the world \u201cwas always like this and always will be\u201d, so, that, not matter what we do, racism will always exist.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, according to scholars on the field, racism is a modern invention. The American historian George Fredrickson tells us that the dominant view among experts is that there was not a concept like race among the Greek, Romans and early Christians. Therefore, as written by the historian Frank Snowden, ancient society \u201cnever made color the basis for judging a man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This does not mean that ethnocentrism or religious intolerance (anti-Semitism, for example, was already common in the West) did not exist, but those two social diseases cannot be compared to racism, because, as explained by Fredrickson, a heathen could be converted and an ethnic stranger could be assimilated into the tribe, until a point that their origins cease to matter in a significant way. Racism, the worst of those, creates a bigger barrier, since it establishes a racial hierarchy among men.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Concerning the most common and harmful type of racism in the West today \u2013 racial prejudice against black people \u2013 Fredrickson likewise denies its origin on the medieval times and defines it as \u201cmainly a product of the modern period\u201d.\u00a0 Thus, essential to claim that slavery of Blacks in the Americans did not happen because of skin color (or even for religious reasons), but, according to the Historian Eric Williams, because of the cheap price of African labor. It is from there, from the slavery of black people that the concept of race and racism arise, as clearly demonstrated by the Brazilian Historian C\u00e9lia Maria Marinha de Azevedo (free translation):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The African slave trade by European traders and their ulterior slavery in American lands gradually paved the way for invention of the concept of race. (\u2026) We can see the historic rise of racism as a discursive practice established in the early modern period on the 16<sup>th<\/sup> Century and that develops in systematic terms, then within the scope of biological and human sciences, during the 19<sup>th<\/sup> century and the first half of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As one can see, we have invented racism; and if we did, we can destroy it. How? Several things are important, like the still huge gap in social inequality among \u201craces\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The repudiation against insults and racist \u201cjokes\u201d is another essential topic. But it has been branded as a \u201cpolitical correctness wave\u201d. There is a perverse inversion of values: \u201cbrave\u201d people get mad for not being able to insult minorities with the \u201cit\u2019s only a joke\u201d excuse.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Against the \u201cpolitically correct\u201d, some people, ignoring history, usually ask: \u201cif I can be called a \u201ccracker\u201d because I\u2019m white, why can\u2019t I call a black man a monkey?\u201d The difference is gigantic! Black people (not White) are victims of real prejudice in society: their hair and faces are not considered pretty; they are constantly unfairly stopped and frisked by the police; security guards follow them as they enter stores; among other absurd situations. Furthermore, the comparison between black men and monkeys exist since the 19<sup>th<\/sup> century as an attempt to dehumanize them and to brand them as something inferior to a \u201ctrue human being\u201d. On the other side, there has never been an association between white people and \u201ccrackers\u201d in that same way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Therefore, because of that historical process previously explained that led to the invention of the concept of race, one can say that when you curse a white man, only one man gets insulted, because being white has never been derogatory in Brazil. However, when you curse a black man because of his color, you insult all black men; worst, you offend all humankind by relativizing (even indirectly in same cases) the cruel period of slavery that still have consequences to this day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So, when a Brazilian of any color, by hearing an insult or even a \u201cjoke\u201d about the black\u2019s man color, start to react as he had received a personal and direct attack; when he begins to feel responsible and embarrassed for all the racists and racism that still exist in our society; then, finally, we will win and destroy which should never even have been created at first place.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">AZEVEDO, C\u00e9lia Maria Marinho de<strong>. Anti-racismo e seus paradoxos: reflex\u00f5es sobre cota racial, ra\u00e7a e racismo<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Paulo: Annablume, 2004.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">FREDRICKSON, George M.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3UfbwZr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Racism: a Short History<\/a>.<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Princeton: Princeton, 2002<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">SNOWDEN JR., Frank M.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ukhw3i\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Before Color Prejudice.<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><strong>The Ancient View of Blacks.<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Harvard University Press, 1991.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_counters\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/lang\/pt\/share-small.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:2px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_c=new Array(\"twitter\",\"facebook_like\",\"facebook_send\",\"pinterest\",\"email\",\"print\",\"linkedin\");var hupso_counters_lang = \"pt_BR\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"blogdootavio\";var hupso_url_c=\"\";var hupso_title_c=\"We%20have%20created%20racism.%20It%20can%20be%20destroyed%3B%20down%20with%20racist%20jokes%21\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/counters.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_counters\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/lang\/pt\/share-small.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:2px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_c=new Array(\"twitter\",\"facebook_like\",\"facebook_send\",\"pinterest\",\"email\",\"print\",\"linkedin\");var hupso_counters_lang = \"pt_BR\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"blogdootavio\";var hupso_url_c=\"\";var hupso_title_c=\"We%20have%20created%20racism.%20It%20can%20be%20destroyed%3B%20down%20with%20racist%20jokes%21\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/counters.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Examples of racism happen daily in the world. This cruel picture has haunted black people for centuries. Because of that, many have the false and pessimist idea that the world \u201cwas always like this and always will be\u201d, so, that, not matter what we do, racism will always exist. However, according to scholars on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_counters\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/lang\/pt\/share-small.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:2px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_c=new Array(\"twitter\",\"facebook_like\",\"facebook_send\",\"pinterest\",\"email\",\"print\",\"linkedin\");var hupso_counters_lang = \"pt_BR\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"blogdootavio\";var hupso_url_c=\"\";var hupso_title_c=\"We%20have%20created%20racism.%20It%20can%20be%20destroyed%3B%20down%20with%20racist%20jokes%21\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/counters.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[22,24,23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2586,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/2586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otaviopinto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}