As a U.S. immigrant who grew up in a suburban neighborhood in Bay Area about 20 years ago, I still remember the first day I learned about Martin Luther King Jr. I couldn’t speak nor write English, yet I still understood what he was about and that the U.S. wouldn’t be so diverse nowdays and “racially” more fair than any other country in the world.
Even South Korea, where I grew up until the age of 9, has its racial laws still “flawed”, not protecting any foreigners who live there.
Basically, I grew up in Korea, where 99% of population are native Koreans. (now it’s more diverse)
While I was growing up there and playing with my neighbor friend’s Apple II computers, the only black or white people we saw were on TV. Korea has 1 channel for American TV called AFN, mainly for people in the U.S. Army based in Korea but us kids enjoyed watching Hulk Hogan on WWF wrestling, something to enjoy even if you can’t understand a word of English.
Anyways, the point is that when you thought of black people in Korea, you didn’t think of black people in America, you thought of black people in Africa, particularly those who are suffering and hungry. Yes, this is also due to the fact that any black people on Korean Television “horribly” depicted black people in general by showing hungry people in Africa. (Now I know there’s a lot of wealthy black people in Africa too.)
Well, this all changed when I came to America. “I” was depicted as the “Karate Kid” at school. Karate Kid was popular during that time. People thought I had to be good at Karate because I was Asian and they “saw” that on television. Or sometimes, I was treated like I was from a 3rd world country, people would remember the days of being in South Korea during the Korean War, which was almost 30+ years before I was even born. Lol…
I’ve probably been treated like a dog a bunch of times and slapped around by bunch of racial-ignorants but heck, I am never going to become like them. Now, I have bunch of white/black/asian friends.
When I went to college, most Asian kids would be hanging out with other Asian groupies and what not.
But I wasn’t like that, I made friends based on pure interests and networking, race was never an issue.
Why do people have to do things based on race?
They don’t, that’s my point.
It’s a very bad thing to judge another culture/race by a television. But still today, I am sure this is going on in many countries where it’s hard to see another culture in real life.
I’ve seen America still “growing” to equalize races, there’s still a lot of prejudice and discrimination going on but perhaps Marin Luther King Jr. Day is a great day to instill in people that racial prejudice was never right and never will be right.
I know there should be freedom of speech but I simply don’t understand why we still have laws to protect golf courses that won’t allow people of different race to play or even the fact that K.K.K. is still around?
Just think of this:
When your kids grow up, do you want them to be discriminated because they are black, white, or Asian?
Racial prejudice isn’t only going on in America, I know for a fact that some people in Korea still are racists against black people, white people, and other asian people.
If you ever step out of the U.S., there’s going to be cultural prejudice against American people in general. It might not happen often but it will happen at least once in your lifetime.
How to stop all this?
Every single person in the world has to be educated enough not to be a racist and simply a fair person. They should have a big “HOW TO DEAL WITH RACISM” chapter in every history book in every school in every country.
Finally, here’s some more tips if you want to stop racism:
If you ever see someone making a racial remark, you should either stop him/her or say something.
People are racists because they are ignorant and they think others think the same.
Stand up for your race and other races, racism isn’t going away if you stay still.
Sometimes I get mad because people are racists against white and black people even though I am Asian. I have always of thought myself as “neutral”, someone who can be all races.
Now, isn’t it ironic that Martin Luther King Jr. day is only 1 day apart from Obama’s Presidential Inauguration?
Somethings are meant to be.
(I am not biased on this blog but I am definitely going to say what’s in my mind and that’s simply being opinionated, mind you.)
