Introduction
Our people have long been divided over the issues of race. Racial discrimination has become a critical phenomenon in today’s world. In recent years, people have started commenting on the fact that something serious needs to be done to address racial equality, and avoid discrimination to a greater extent.
Not only is racial discrimination there, but our people are also divided on a religious basis. After a year of unrest over a major terrorist attack in London, cartoon portrayals of Prophet Muhammad, and continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people are influenced that relations between Muslims and Westerners are not good these days. Westerners view Muslims as ferocious fanatical, and as lacking tolerance while Muslims in Asia and the Middle East consider Westerners as self-centered, dishonest and greedy.
The following articles give the description of how white people look at blacks, why there’s so much racial discrimination, and what incidents led towards the heated emotions of hatred among Westerners and Muslims, and how people look at Asian and Arab people.
Article 1
The article “Why do white people despise blacks?” written by Julius Malema states that white supremacist posts on social media mentioning black people as the uneducated, dirty masses are the causes of the deep-rooted phenomenon of racism. Anti-black racism has been there in South Africa for 22 years, and sadly, the democratic law has miserably failed to displace its foundation.
Julius asks why there’s so much hatred for blacks and why do the whites find it easy to view them with disgustful eyes undermining their humanity?
The answer to these questions lies in the material conditions, and the structural organization that have been made especially for the black people. The colonization and apartheid made poverty, cheap labor, illiteracy, landlessness, and hunger part of the exclusive identity of the black community.
Therefore, a black revolution should deal with the structural alteration of conditions for black people. Otherwise, it’s useless to imagine any white respecting a black or at least treating them like human beings.
Article 2
The article named as “The View of Muslims and Arabs in America Before and After September 11th” by Heather Jolls, Anita Alaverdian, Lindsay Adams, and Roselle Silva says that how the world viewed Muslims and Middle Eastern people has always been skewed, even before the incident of 9/11. It can be seen in media and films, labeled as part of the cognizant plan of experts and activists in the Middle East.
The Muslims are not the only ones to be directed for racial profiling, which has not only targeted the Muslim community. People view Arabs as menacing and hazardous people who are always robed and turbaned and engaged in terrorist activities such as blowing up public buildings and hijacking airplanes.
It appears that the human race is unable to distinguish between minorities who may be objectionable from the ethnic strain from which they originate. The world finds it easy to generalize it to the whole community. If the Arabs have fanatics, means all Arabs are violent, if the Italians have the Mafia, it would mean that all Italians are suspects; if the Jews have financiers, it will indicate that all Jews share an international conspiracy.
After the incident of 9/11, the opinions regarding the Arab and Asian people became harsher, and any person who looked like the images that the media showed as the enemy wasn’t tolerable for the people. The media played the role for fueling the hatred and disgust that the people had for all the Arabs while these attacks were committed by a relatively a small group of people responsible.
References
Malema, J. (2016). Why do white people despise blacks. The Sunday Times, 10.
(n.d.). California State University, Northridge. The View of Muslims and Arabs in America Before and After September 11th. Retrieved from http://www.csun.edu/~sm60012/GRCS-Files/Muslims-post-9-11.htm
