Planning on attending the U.N. conference on racism in Switzerland next month? Not anymore, at least not if you’re a member of the Italian, Canadian, Israeli, or possibly even American delegations. Why not? Is it because these countries are, in fact, racist nations and don’t want to participate? No. It’s because religion has worked it’s way into the final draft of the conference’s working document, and these nations believe that criticism of religious remarks is a separate issue, with no place in the conference.
Are race and religion unrelated though? The issue stems from Muslim countries successfully adding document verbiage that condemns Israeli (and others’) criticisms of the Islamic faith, on the basis that Israeli statements are racist. Yet as the Jerusalem Post article states, America doesn’t see eye to eye with the Muslim countries on this issue:
Last week, the Obama administration said
the United States will stay away from this year’s meeting unless its final document is changed to drop all references to Israel and the defamation of religion.
In America, religion, along with just about anything else one considers, has racial or possibly even racist overtones. You’re a white person, Christian, dreading going to church this Sunday morning because it’s boring, it’s uninspiring, the kids will get restless, no one will even remember what the readings or the homily are about…you get the idea. You’ll go anyway. Ever been to a “black” church though? Aren’t they all filled with energy, dancing, yelling “Amen!” to everything the preacher says? I don’t know if they are or not, because I’ve never been to one. Why not? Am I too self-conscious about how to act or what the congregation will think of me, a white person?
I’ve been to Spanish Mass at my Catholic church, and it’s a different experience to be in the minority (especially when you don’t even understand the language). Not scary, not bad, just an awareness that everyone there is the same as each other but different than you. Go to a black this, an Asian that, and the feeling’s the same. One that we white Americans aren’t used to, but one that black Americans and all other minority Americans live every day of their lives.
Does it have an effect, an impact? Does it matter if you personally don’t treat other races any differently than you treat your own? Can you see how race impacts the existence of millions of Americans all the time?
Seems to me that black Americans are far more comfortable with the situation of being in the minority than white people are, because one is far more likely to observe 1 black person among a group of white people than to see 1 white person hanging out where there are predominantly black people. I believe the willingness to mix and mingle is there because most black people hold the view that the power class of America, white people, is a class that can pretty much only be entered through assimilation and conformity, and not by openly embracing one’s own, different culture and rising to power based on “merit” or ability alone.
Today, the black Americans who hold that sentiment are, with some exceptions, correct. But the world shouldn’t be that way, so we’re doing what we can to change it.
