Someone who lives in an ethnically homogeneous society (or at least one that claims itself to be) often requires a visually exaggerated definition of race in order of make sense of distant peoples they often cannot meet in real life. Oh ok, Italians eat pasta, Japanese eat sushi, Americans eat hamburgers...thats all harmless and well if one never gets to meet an Italian, a Japanese, or an American. Whatever it takes to help people remember different peoples and their practical differences, then, would prove somewhat valuable for, say, watching TV or going for short tourist visits in foreign countries.
The same strategy is, to say the least, not so effective when those Italians, Japanese, and Americans happen to be one's next door neighbors. Daily exposures require much more nuanced knowledge of foreign cultures. After all, while one can avoid going to Italy if one hates pasta, one cannot dodge every sight of one's Italian neighbor for the same reason. One can choose to hate a certain aspect of an ethnic stranger, but constant exposure should remind one to keep those hatreds to oneself and make a tenuous but peaceful relationship work, even if the amicability is forced at best.
It seems like there are still many people in North America, undoubtedly one of the most ethnically diverse and mixed place on the face of the Earth, still have trouble understanding this principle. The recent comments made by a certain Don Sterling, owner of the NBA team LA Clippers, showed that no person is immune to embarrassing public gaffes of a racist nature, no matter how media-experienced and financially capable the person happens to be. Naturally, some people are racist against others, but the inability to keep those nasty opinions to themselves is all the more surprising given Mr Sterling's sports industry involvement.
It is useless to question the institution of racism. Every human requires certain methods to feel self-confident, and comparisons are the logical ways to make self-confidence grow. What is unfortunate is that mere physical differences like ethnicity (as reflected often in skin color and various obvious social customs, languages, religions) have to be tied in with the concept of race, and this is the driving force of racism. To put in different terms, racism is never really about race as a physical state, but a whole set of perceived social values that each individual human is educated to associate with physical attributes.
It is this education that must be changed for racism to wane in degree. But clearly, given the current state of what the media broadcast to the general populace, any unfair associations between often negative stereotypes and the concept of race is only being strengthened. A recent controversial music video from Canadian singer Avril Lavigne is a strong case in point. In a song about the "kawaii" (cute) culture of Japan, Ms Lavigne did her best to portray the country as a land of weird colorful buildings and even weirder unemotional people incapable of open emotional flair like, well, herself.
Makes one wonder if this is the standard way many people think of the issue of race. The ease of drawing irritation to a particular race or culture is undeniable when a whole people is caricatured as Ms Lavigne has done so successfully in her new music video. In the unorthodox compilation of Japanese representations, even the most ardent Japanophiles, not to mention those not that familiar with Japan, can find something worthy of a frown. Surely for Mr Sterling's case, the NBA itself, with all its stereotypical athletic straightforwardness, African-American culture treated the same way as Japan in the Lavigne music video.
The problem is, when anyone voices discomfort with a certain race, based on the "knowledge" they acquired through stereotype-based media exposure, the public goes through a knee-jerk natural reflex to criticize the commentator for insensitivity. They unleash some sort of moral anger upon the racist despite the fact that the racist in question was probably just reiterating his/her opinions of what s/he found weird in the media's very public portrayal of different cultures. Nobody, in the process, ever thinks about where the racist got the ideas, much less question how the media reports the whole fiasco.
The likes of Mr Sterling and Ms Lavigne once again remind society that the way it has dealt with racism in the past is not only ineffective but highly counterproductive. On one hand, the media is forced to put more people of different races out there for "ethnic diversification," but the way in which these ethnic peoples are made to behave only enhances stereotypes and not nuanced understandings of cultures. The effort backfires, even in countries like the US where ethnic mixing has a long history. The fact that even people in the US cant keep their mouths shut on deviant racial opinions illustrate just how far society has to go in truly making racism a problem of the past.
The same strategy is, to say the least, not so effective when those Italians, Japanese, and Americans happen to be one's next door neighbors. Daily exposures require much more nuanced knowledge of foreign cultures. After all, while one can avoid going to Italy if one hates pasta, one cannot dodge every sight of one's Italian neighbor for the same reason. One can choose to hate a certain aspect of an ethnic stranger, but constant exposure should remind one to keep those hatreds to oneself and make a tenuous but peaceful relationship work, even if the amicability is forced at best.
It seems like there are still many people in North America, undoubtedly one of the most ethnically diverse and mixed place on the face of the Earth, still have trouble understanding this principle. The recent comments made by a certain Don Sterling, owner of the NBA team LA Clippers, showed that no person is immune to embarrassing public gaffes of a racist nature, no matter how media-experienced and financially capable the person happens to be. Naturally, some people are racist against others, but the inability to keep those nasty opinions to themselves is all the more surprising given Mr Sterling's sports industry involvement.
It is useless to question the institution of racism. Every human requires certain methods to feel self-confident, and comparisons are the logical ways to make self-confidence grow. What is unfortunate is that mere physical differences like ethnicity (as reflected often in skin color and various obvious social customs, languages, religions) have to be tied in with the concept of race, and this is the driving force of racism. To put in different terms, racism is never really about race as a physical state, but a whole set of perceived social values that each individual human is educated to associate with physical attributes.
It is this education that must be changed for racism to wane in degree. But clearly, given the current state of what the media broadcast to the general populace, any unfair associations between often negative stereotypes and the concept of race is only being strengthened. A recent controversial music video from Canadian singer Avril Lavigne is a strong case in point. In a song about the "kawaii" (cute) culture of Japan, Ms Lavigne did her best to portray the country as a land of weird colorful buildings and even weirder unemotional people incapable of open emotional flair like, well, herself.
Makes one wonder if this is the standard way many people think of the issue of race. The ease of drawing irritation to a particular race or culture is undeniable when a whole people is caricatured as Ms Lavigne has done so successfully in her new music video. In the unorthodox compilation of Japanese representations, even the most ardent Japanophiles, not to mention those not that familiar with Japan, can find something worthy of a frown. Surely for Mr Sterling's case, the NBA itself, with all its stereotypical athletic straightforwardness, African-American culture treated the same way as Japan in the Lavigne music video.
The problem is, when anyone voices discomfort with a certain race, based on the "knowledge" they acquired through stereotype-based media exposure, the public goes through a knee-jerk natural reflex to criticize the commentator for insensitivity. They unleash some sort of moral anger upon the racist despite the fact that the racist in question was probably just reiterating his/her opinions of what s/he found weird in the media's very public portrayal of different cultures. Nobody, in the process, ever thinks about where the racist got the ideas, much less question how the media reports the whole fiasco.
The likes of Mr Sterling and Ms Lavigne once again remind society that the way it has dealt with racism in the past is not only ineffective but highly counterproductive. On one hand, the media is forced to put more people of different races out there for "ethnic diversification," but the way in which these ethnic peoples are made to behave only enhances stereotypes and not nuanced understandings of cultures. The effort backfires, even in countries like the US where ethnic mixing has a long history. The fact that even people in the US cant keep their mouths shut on deviant racial opinions illustrate just how far society has to go in truly making racism a problem of the past.
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