by Bang on Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:26 pm
Why do you say I am a racist. You were generalizing. Please read this long post until the very end...please don't just stop reading here. I really don't want to be labeled as a racist because I am not.
Like I said, I was being a bit frustrated so I vented out my hatred against Japanese, that is all. Are you Japanese, if so, then I am deeply sorry.
First of all, if I am assuming what you are thinking then I have nothing against African Americans, and I have never said African Americans are inferior or anything, nor did I ever take part in anything nor will I take part in anything that is the cruel institution of race. I respect African Americans above all races because they live in a country that has race written in the laws, society, etc and they must truly fight it, every inch of their lives, living extra harder because of the barrier of race. I truly do. I am not writing this as bullshit. After I took a few courses on American History, I couldn't help but realize how serious the race issue is in America, and from then on I realized how much struggle the average African American has to go through. So knowing this, I NEVER want to be under the impression that I am racist against African Americans, at the very least. Look, I just don't want to be considered a racist, that's why I am writing all this, because I am not.
I went into the most dangerous slums in Sao Paulo to teach English to children so that they could go to better schools. Keep in mind Sao Paulo has one of the highest crime rates in the world, and that place had supposedly the highest concentration of crime. To be called racist sort of nullifies whatever I've done there, because that experience was one of the most enlightening experiences I have ever had. (Yes sounds cliche, but whatever.) That all this bullshit that the rich make up, painting Black people into pure criminals, is just that, bullshit. (Sorry I had to use the word Black, I cringe everytime I use that word because in itself there are so many implications of race in it, but it's Brazil so I don't know if African American would fit.) Those stereotypes are horribly wrong and false. Initially people were against students trying to teach these kids because they felt it was too dangerous. The PTA argued that the people there were too dangerous for us to go. Eventually, after a year or so, we were able to use this to convince them to provide buses for the students we teach so they could come to our school. (Oh and the parents were scared ridiculously about that too, which was also wrong.) Also, since our school was huge, we were able to enlarge our student numbers by 10 times the size. Some of these kids were one of the brightest people I have ever known. There was a kid who picked up English much faster than some people and we convinced the school to give him a scholarship.
Look, if I didn't believe racism, inequality was a serious issue, or if I were racist, I wouldn't have been involved in this as much. It provides me with community service hours, sure, but I missed holidays and weekends for this. There were days when only a few people came because of some crime that happened in that region recently, or because it was a major holiday in Brazil, but I went every single weekend except one when I was very sick. Plus I went over my IB required 150 community service hours significantly. I had 450 community service hours. I could've stopped after one year, and I was going to initially. If I didn't believe I was doing something, yes something very small and maybe meaningless, to solve inequality issues in Brazil, I would've quit.
Bored.