by Jo Anne-Patricia Piccarillo

Created on: April 27, 2008

According to Miriam-Webster, racism is defined as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Yet in today's society, racism seems to be an accepted cop-out of ignorance backed up by a loop hole in the constitution; freedom of speech and the right to indifference.

Racism has different justifications, depending on which generation explains it. I am third generation, a generation in which racism still actively exists but where it is more common to see and accept mixed couples, mixed children and a mixing bowl of people everywhere you go. My parents however, come from a generation where these daily run-ins, are not so common. In the generation of my grandparents, these situations were unheard of and completely unacceptable. So how will the next generation view it?

There are so many different factors that continuously feed the existence of racism. Some may say that area in which we live in is a factor. Some geographical areas are more susceptible to accepting the idea that everyone is created equally, and some would rather live on with their beliefs that one race is more superior than the rest. I have personally traveled through different towns and states and have realized this statement to be 100% true; yet have developed their beliefs based on different reasonings.

The majority of the black race despises the majority of the white race because of the "attitude" of the typical white person. Since the age of slavery, white people may or may not have passed down, from generation to generation, the belief that the black race if inferior to that of the whites. Sadly, this attitude is still aggressively shown today. In some states, children as young as 3 are being raised to hate a race they may have never even seen outside of a Television screen, without any justification or reason. Even more heartbreaking, there are an indefinite amount of black youth being prepped since birth not to be discouraged by their lack of opportunity because of the dominating force of whites in corporate America. This, I am afraid to say is almost written in stone.

But we are now approaching the age of a "minority come up", in both corporate and non corporate America. An age where the Spanish community is rising in rights, language and respect. An age where Dora the Explorer and her pal Diego are not only teaching children of all ages and races a different language but also imposing other morals and values that every parent strives to teach their young. An age where we are standing witness to the first Black Governor in New York and possibly the first black or female Presidency. An age where we should not be entertaining nor endorsing racism any longer. So why are we?

This is a question that we need to ask in every home of America and then raise to every governing body with conviction, fact and the will power to see the results all the through.

Learn more about this author, Jo Anne-Patricia Piccarillo.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.