I would like to dedicate this blog to a young boy in my Grade R class that has unfortunately passed away. I know it is a heavy topic, but I feel that this event has so much to say about the world we live in. First of all, I’d just like to say that what I could say about him in this blog post could never be enough, and dedicating it to him is not even close to what he deserves. This boy was a beautiful child, with the sweetest smile and laugh. He was such a well-behaved child, despite the fact that he had to learn in a language that was not his mother tongue. He was patient, and so kind with me – a stranger that he hadn’t known for very long. My favorite memory is of him on the playground, showing me his flips and somersaults. There was a language barrier between us, but we connected in other ways. I’ve never truly known a young person that has died, and it is a concept that still doesn’t make sense in my head. I’m not sure if its right for me to be writing about him in a blog post, I feel as if it is partly demeaning and almost normalizes his passing. But I feel that there is a message that I want to convey to anyone who might not see it or may still be blind to the effects of racism.
Racism is deadly. In our world I feel as though we see tragedies happening within minority groups, but we don’t give their cause a right name. We watch movies in which character’s living in “ghettos” die from drugs, or gun wars or anything like that. So we stop at that. We stop at what we are seeing, and we see the cause of their death and misfortune as the situation. The cause is not what it seems. Those gun wars and incidents with drugs would not be occurring if racism did not exist. If we did not oppress a certain group so that they were forced to live and survive among themselves, their deaths would not occur. They would not be forced to resort to joining gangs or selling drugs to survive.
I know that in the US many people still believe that people in poverty perpetuate it themselves. People somehow believe that these minorities choose to live with hardship. What about the child I knew? Did that 5 year old choose to live in a home and area that is prone to accidental fires? Did he choose to live in an unsafe environment? I don’t think so. And that’s why I think this incident is so important. It becomes clear, at least to me, when an innocent child is put in these circumstances due to society. Would his parents have honestly chosen to raise their children in an unsafe environment? Absolutely not. No one would choose to do that.
It’s easy to roll our eyes when someone calls us out for saying a racist comment, but there is direct connection to that comment and the tragedies happening to minorities in my country and South Africa. Those comments lead to societies that accept oppression of certain groups of people, and therefore allow tragedies such as the death of a young innocent boy. This child should have never had to grow up in such an unsafe environment. Because of his skin color? Its absurd and I am having so much trouble grasping this concept. It pains me to think that his young life was cut short because people in this world need to label and put people in categories to comfort themselves. It angers me that people in this world, including myself sometimes, must belittle other’s lives so that their own can be more meaningful. It makes me sick that the death of this child will go unnoticed and won’t faze those who contributed to its cause. Why did this child have to suffer at the cost of someone else needing more control in the world?
Myself and many of the people I know have choices. But we need to consider those that do not. We need to consider and recognize the luxury we have to choose, and the fact that our choices often affect those who do NOT have choices. For the sake of this child, and people young and old like him all around the world – we need to be more conscious in our choices. We must act more carefully, to avoid perpetuating unfortunate circumstances. As white female, I have such a luxury (and sometimes burden) of choice and I know I need to use this privilege in a positive way.
No comments:
Post a Comment