by S.E.G.

Created on: June 17, 2008   Last Updated: September 05, 2011

Discussing racism is similar to attempting to have a coherent conversation about confusion; it’s difficult to figure out where to start and then how to proceed.

Because racism or prejudice is the quintessence of ignorance and produces the most potentially confusing and violent visions of deception: other people are different from ‘us’ people.

Racism:               

1: Belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

2: racial prejudice or discrimination.

That word—racism- has an ugly ring to it that doesn’t come from its spelling; and that type of belief doesn't get into someone’s mind through a process of reasoning. It has to be planted in young, malleable minds that lack the sophistication to challenge it.  And once there, through attrition, a little at time racism blossoms into mistrust, fear and then full-blown hatred, turning ‘other’ people into indiscriminate targets; blaming others for one’s own unhappiness is such an easy- and thoughtless- thing to do.

With one hard smack racism will crack a person's vision of life into meaningless divisions that can send heated words and bullets flying.

Racism is prejudice and the words themselves tell us something: race-ism and pre-judge are reactive thoughts not reason or logic; and no innocent child's mind will produce them without two conditions present:            

1. A lack of education about, and constructive experience with, other races; i.e. ignorance.

2. Someone who is prejudiced must share and instill these thoughts in a malleable mind.

I was lucky; as a child I gained the experience needed to avoid the ‘void’ of ignorance about other people beginning on a Santa Cruz, California beach as a five year-old. My family was sitting on the piece of sand we had staked out for the day when a man wearing only a bathing suit walked past us. On his forearm was a string of tattooed numbers, and this unusual sight set my young mind and mouth in motion while my mother tried to shush me.  Undaunted I jumped up and sprinted to where he had stopped and turned to face me at hearing my commotion.

Assuring my mother it was quite alright, that children needed to hear what he had to say, he then explained to me what Nazi

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