Thursday, February 5, 2015

Racism & The Social Good

Everybody relies heavily on their ethnicity and background to identify themselves, to give themselves a sense of identity, a sense of belonging.

In everyday dealings, it is not unusual for people to refer to each other by their background or ethnicity, as a way of trying to place each other in context for further engagement.

Problems appear when insecurities come in.

If a race is afraid that they will be marginalised, they will call attend to themselves in order for some proactive solutions to be made to their particular benefits. This is on the assumption that society at large would not care for them. This may not be entirely true. But this assumption immediately brings into the picture a sense of victimisation. They want the government to institute "corrective" policies to help them.

When the government institutes correction policies on the basis of race, the government has introduced racism as a matter of state policy. State policy becomes racist. When racism is made "official", it becomes "acceptable" for politicians to become racist while denying they are racist because they really did not mean to be racist as racism has crept slowly but surely into his or her consciousness.

We are therefore vigilant that politicians who have influence of policies are enlightened as to what is good for society and that state policy must be good and beneficial for all citizens. We do not allow politicians to behave or speak without thinking about the larger implications for the whole society. Especially, when a section of society is being bamboozled for the benefit of another section.

It is difficult enough to try to help. But it is not acceptable to try to help by down others. The "proactive" racist policy of the state has turned into a blatant racist policy against a specific race. Not intentionally, but somehow an innocent policy has morphed into a mutation.

I would put the blame squarely on unenlightened politicians or wannabe politicians who are desperate for votes and use to race card to clinch their positions.

It in incredible to see in the country how policies are made consistently to exclude the participation of a genuine home-ground "non" group while at the same time welcoming foreigners of all kinds to invest and to work and to live. This explicit segregation is the elephant in the room. It does not help if the government of the day gives excuse for racists while asking those who are being victimised not to bring up the matter anymore.

The correct action is to sack the politician who made racist remarks.

It is not OK for politicians to garner support by playing the racist card. In day-to-day private conversations, race will be an inevitable subject for discussion as well as for sharing, especially on cultural matters. But race should not be a subject for public discourse or definitely not for policy.

1 comment:

walla said...

A: This racism thingy seems to be a recurring issue, yes?

B: Actually it has been escalating incandescently.

A: Let me ask you a question. What caused it and where will it lead to?

B: That's two questions. But let's diss protocol and diplomatic niceties to try and get to the heart of the matter, ok?

A: That sounds ominous.

B: Who cares? Truth must prevail.

(faraway look...)

Let's hypothetically put it down to these successive causes, one cascading into the next:

one, the brits had a lapse of judgement;

two, monoracial politics divided the nation;

three, federated government became monoracial;

four, the national economic policy was perverted;

five, faith and other social issues entered the fray, and

six, economics became the last nail on the coffin.