what is racism

What is racism? It's a very difficult question that I have pondered for quite a while. After our class discussion, it occurred to me that racism was in fact much more complicated than just the definition of the word. After class, I had made up my own definition, or my own understanding, of the words true meaning. I feel that racism is any form of making a race inferior, whether that be by hate crimes, stereotypes, etc. Anything that singles out a race should be considered racism. But, based on this definitions, it should not necessarily be the loaded word that it is made out to be. Of course if you are a member of the KKK, you are racist and violent, and the racism you show is extreme. If you say someone is good at math because they are asian, it is minor racism, but racism none the less. But, in this case, it is not as serious as the previous example, leading me to believe that there are multiple forms of racism, multiple levels. These levels are all based upon the amount of hate a person has toward a particular racial group. A minor racist, such as in the story, believes what he or she does based upon the hatred of others and the beliefs of society. This person's beliefs come from hatred, but he or she does not actually hate the race. A person with a lot of hatred does individually hate that race, and often will act out against them and commit hate crimes. There is a reason why the word hate is used in hate crimes, which are acts of racism. The two words are connected. I believe that there is always hate in racism, whether it is subconscious or evident. The two go hand in hand, and the level of each varies based upon how evident they are in each person. Thus, racism is a radical form of hatred that has many different levels beginning with stereotyping and ending with hate crimes and radical action. Racism is very broad and should not be confined to just people like the KKK. Racism is common today with the stereotyping of African Americans and other races or minorities. Thus, racism is truly much more broad than the actual definition of the word implies.

Is Amal Wise

Is Amal Wise? It is truly an interesting question, as an argument for both sides can easily be made. I struggled with this question for a good period of time, thinking about which side I would like to back up. I finally decided that Amal in the story The Post Office, written by Rabindranath Tagore, is just a naive child who is not truly wise. He is the epitome of a young child who conveys the true meaning of life without truly knowing what he is saying. A wise person has to understand what he or she is saying. With the Curdseller for example, Amal talks about how great it would be to have that job. He shows the Curdseller that his life is good, and it makes the man happy. But, Amal enlightened this man due to childish thought and opinion. He just wants to do everything that he cannot do while he is sick. He wants to go outside, so he talks about how great of a life the Curdseller has only due to that. Amal is not a wise person giving advice; he is unintentionally showing wisdom in the way any young kid would, by accident. He is no wiseman, he is a child. Wisdom implies a true understanding into the meaning of something. A person like Aristotle or John Locke would be wise, for example. They truly understood, at least in their opinion, the meaning of life, as they wrote about it. Amal is naive and young, and he really does not understand the implications of what he is saying. As the Headman says, Amal is kind and well mannered, but naive. A wise person is not naive; he or she is fully aware of what he or she is saying, as well as the implications as to what it means. Amal, although he does share some insightful thoughts, does not understand that what he is saying is wise; therefore, he cannot be considered a wise person. Thus, I do not believe that Amal can be considered a wise person; he is a naive child.

A Day in the Life

While reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I could not help but think about the terrible conditions of the work camp, and how difficult it would be to live there. Thoughts such as what the purpose of the camp was flowed through my head. Then, finally, it hit me. The camp's purpose was to break the will of those individuals forced to stay there. What other purpose could they serve than to break the will and identity of the individuals there. Just look at the location of these camps. Siberia, arguably the worst and most difficult place to survive on earth. It is freezing cold, and basically impossible to escape from. A prison there would not even need walls or gates to keep prisoners from leaving because, in an interesting way, when a person is in Siberia the camp is keeping them from the wilderness and from death, not the other way around. The location thus makes a person feel confined and stuck in a world so separated from everything else that there is no hope of returning; a person cannot escape from this hell. This sense of hopelessness serves to break the will of the prisoners, and inevitably, force them into perfect submission, or into tools of the state. Also, giving the prisoners little food keeps them struggling, and it shows these people that although they only receive little food, without the camp they could have nothing. In other words, the camp uses food to enforce its will on the prisoners, and it knows that it can starve them or keep them hungry, also breaking down a persons will. This leads to complete exhaustion, and a loss of all sense of hope. Constant hunger is quite possibly one of the worst feelings a person can feel. And, finally, being treated as a lesser person, or as property, finally breaks down the individual until his only remaining identity is that he is a property of the state. When people are constantly telling you that you are not an equal human being, but more like an animal for years, you lose the sense of who you really are, as you have not been told anything different. So, how do the prisoners fight these evils of the camp? First, a prisoner must be resourceful and be able to survive based on what he or she can find. Scavenging is a necessity for a prisoner in a gulag. This enables a person to get at least something similar to adequate nutrition, which is necessary to work the immense hours they have to. Combating the constant belittling by the guards and the people controlling the prisoners is much more difficult to achieve. This takes mental strength and the ability to hold on to who you are. The only way to have success here is to stay mentally tough and tune out the constant and false statements made by the camp. Also, the only people who will survive the camp with any sense of identity are those who never give up hope. It is necessary to live day by day, hour by hour, never giving up the hope of surviving the camp. That is the only way to survive a place like that. Thus, the camps are constantly trying to crush the identities of the inmates who must struggle to keep this identity in order to survive. Without an identity, what is a person, an individual. In truth, a person without an identity is reduced to nothing; it is emptiness. Thus, keeping identity is the most important, and the most difficult, struggle the inmates undertake when they are forced to imprisonment in the gulag.