Stop the discrimination!

Racism and bigotry seem to have been a common theme for me this week. I watched American History X for the first time in many a year.

A few days later happened to watch Crash (one of my favourite films ever) again too and an episode of Boston Legal I was watching on a separate day dealt in a case of suspected racism - all thought provoking stuff that kept playing over and over in my head.

And although I'm not part of the generations that perpetuated racism in all its forms, I couldn't help catching a case of white guilt. Even though my two best and closest friends in the world are Bahraini and Nigerian and I've always stood firmly against discriminating against anyone just because of the colour of their skin, I still had occasion to feel guilty.

Not for myself but for the behaviour of my entire race - white guilt.

It was only a few days later that I got a example of how far in the opposite direction white guilt has taken us. There's a song called Chocolate High by India Ari that I've been playing quite a bit on the radio recently.

It's got a feel good happy tune about it and goes well with many of the other songs I play but I hadn't really listened to the words properly until a few days ago.

She sings: "[you're] my black coffee with sugar no cream in the morning. You're my super double caffeine dream yeah. Your precious darkness got me so strung out".

She's a black woman singing about how she loves her black man and there's nothing wrong with that.

Watch any talk show dealing with the topic of racism and you'll find black people standing up in the audience saying that they're proud to be black, as well they should be.

But then it got me to thinking that if a white artist sung about their white love, the cries of racism would reverberate around the world. Equally anyone who has the nerve to stand up and say they're proud to be white would soon be accused of being a bigoted white extremist.

That doesn't seem fare really, it's a form of reverse racism. Being proud of who you are doesn't automatically mean you look down on anyone different. It simply means that you're not ashamed to be who you are. That's something every single one of us should strive for, irrespective of race/sex/faith.

One of the most idiotic phrases I've ever heard was: "I don't see colour". I've lost count of how many times I've heard someone say it in an attempt to convince the person they're talking to that they are not racist.

It smacks of desperation. More often than not the person saying it really does believe that they are free of bigotry against others but the very fact that they feel the need to say it implies to the person listening that they have a guilty conscience about it.

Let's face it, it's impossible not to see colour and all of us at one stage or another has adjusted our behaviour depending on who we happen to be talking to.

As politically incorrect as it may be, we've all at some time had a good giggle over some racist/sexist/elitist joke or other.

Not because we're racist/sexist/elitist but because the joke resonates with us in some way and is funny. Take blonde jokes for example.

Whether it can be proved true or not, it's a common theme in jokes that blonde people are less intelligent than dark haired people. The large majority of the human race knows very well that the colour of a person's hair doesn't reflect their intelligence and very few would discriminate against someone just because the colour of their hair was too blonde, but that doesn't stop each and everyone of us having a giggle over a good blonde joke every now and again. We might however not laugh quite so loud or feel uncomfortable laughing at all if there was blonde standing right next to us.

It's human nature to adjust our behaviour depending on who we're talking to and to pretend that we don't is just untruthful and quite frankly insulting.

In an attempt to correct the wrongs done to minority groups we've come up with 'affirmative action', which according to Wikipedia: "refers to policies that take gender, race, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity [...] The impetus towards affirmative action is twofold: to maximise the benefits of diversity in all levels of society, and to redress disadvantages due to overt, institutional, or involuntary discrimination."

Firstly, the term 'minority' has an implication of 'less than' and as such is a defamatory word - especially when you take into consideration that what we consider to be 'minority groups' are many more in numbers than Caucasians, making them in effect the 'majority'.

Secondly, if getting rid of racism is about stopping the use of discrimination from one colour to another, then we should take it only to a point of neutrality.

To push things in favour of those previously oppressed is then showing discrimination against those who were previously doing the oppressing.

Yes, what was wrong very definitely needs to be set right and the discrimination that has gone on for so many years needs to be a redressed but to push something from one extreme to another is only going to breed resentment. When enough 'white people' have lost out to non-white people just because of the colour of their skin, they will react in exactly the same way as black people did to racism.

They'll put there feet firmly down and say 'no more'! White guilt will soon stop having the same impact on people and they will start to feel resentment, which will bring us right back to where we started - racism.

The true absence of all bigotry can only be reached when we all see ourselves as equals, with everyone being treated the same and afforded the same right. Only then any of us claim to "not see colour".