Racial Discrimination :: essays research papers

Racial Discrimination"KAFFIR". When you see or hear this word, what runs with your mind? Do youpicture a firearm with skin the color of the midnight sky, do you see him bendinghis muscular body down to the dry res publica to pick cotton from thorn-ridden plants?Can you feel the heat of the sun beating down on his charred back? Perhaps youcan even taste the bead of sweat swelling from his forehead and arms. Or maybeyou are more inclined to visualize a dark-skinned woman with creases in herforehead make by many years of hard work and endless worrying. You watch her asshe puts the breakfast dishes on the table and addresses her owners with a "yessah" or "yes maam". in that location is nobody to cater to her needs. She spends each day taking care ofeveryone but herself. Pain. Sorrow. Anguish. Agony. Is this what comes to yourmind when you hear the word "KAFFIR"? Well, it shouldnt because the word"kaffir" has nonhing to do with the color of yo ur skin. The word "kaffir" isjust that a word. It is a term that sprouted out of ignorance and continues tobe used to this day exclusively by brutal people. A kaffir isnt a slang termfor an African it is a word that describes the person that uses it. This typeof person is one who feeds his ego by dehumanizing those just about him when hefeels they are not equal to him. He may regard those of different races ornationalities as "bad" or "dirty" because they do not have the same skin coloras he does or they may cherish beliefs that are contrary to the ones by which helives his life.These qualities describe the man who tells his son that it is okay to make funof people who are different because differences are bad. A child who isrepeatedly told such things will believe them because " florists chrysanthemum and dad never lie".This idea, inculcated in them as children, is like a grain of sand caught in theclutches of an oyster. It eats away at their minds until it becomes deviate of them.Instead of forming into a pearl, it creates a whole new individual that is asignorant as the parents who raised him. And so this vicious cycle of ignorancecontinues.Children need to be taught from infancy that people of other races andnationalities are human too. They think like the rest of us. They have feelings,hopes, and aspirations. They are intelligent.