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Note:
I mean no offense to any race, cast, or person mentioned in this article. I have just quoted a few examples we hear in our daily lives, and do not mean to degrade or demean anyone at all.

I believe racism is taught. Children are innocent. A small child knows nothing about casts, races and religions. They may notice the difference in colorings and attitudes, which of course are visible to see, however they have no clue what these means. Children may be a little shy, suspicious of people who look different from them, but that is natural. We always do tend to be a little wary of people who look different than us.

However, we teach our children racism, intentionally or unintentionally, just as our parents taught us and as our grandparents taught our parents. We make jokes on race, religions, occupation, and coloring and then when we crack them out loud in front of children they also learn. We tell them, for example, that a blond girl has to be brainless, or a colored person has to be inferior, or a Sardar has to be unintelligent, and the newest being that Muslims are terrorists and so on. Similarly, there are actually quotations that our ancestors have made on different casts and races.

But children do not understand such things. They do not understand history, religion and culture. We make them understand and we are to blame the way they turn out. We can not resist commenting on other people and how they behave. We tell our children not to interact with the Muslim child in the neighborhood, or the colored children at school. Why? Have they been convicted of being evil? Has it been proved that sardars are unintelligent? Remember, words have a deep impact, words out of our mouth leave an impact on even the surroundings in which they were said, and a child's mind is pure, please let it be that way. Do not feed your prejudices to your child's ears and ultimately their heart. It is a fact that something we keep on hearing over and over again, there will come a day when we start believing in it.

I ask is it wise in today's world of hatred and war and chaos to teach our children these things? Is it not enough what is happening in the world? What are we giving are children as legacy? thoughts of hatred and discrimination. When we should be teaching them to love and unite with your fellow beings. We are all equal and God does not discriminate us on the basis of our colors, so why do we do so? With due respect, but have you actually seen a piece of brain missing from the blond ladies? Of course the answer is NO, so why the prejudice then? It is time we forget our physical differences and stand together. So stop teaching you children about the kind of person a person is based on their color, religion or cast.

Learn more about this author, Khadija Abbas.
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