Everything You Need to Know About Racism

2020 was not the first time the world witnessed the existence of Racism and America is not the only nation where Racism exists. Racism exists in every part and community of the world. It has existed since the very beginning of human societies. 

Racism is a belief that a community or a group of people having certain behavioral and biological features are superior or inferior compared to another group or community. It has an evolutionary history. Homo sapiens were part of the same nature where all the other living organisms existed and “Survival of the Fittest” was the rule of nature.  

Ensuring survival meant ensuring safety, fitness and strength which was the fundamental goal of ancient times. Accumulating power meant dominating others in the society. Groups were formed to become powerful, and those groups became tribes, tribes made cultures and cultures created Kingdoms & Empires with the same mindset of surviving.  

Throughout history

This spirit of dominating others created as well as destroyed many Empires in the past. When one dominates others as a person, as a species, as a community, as a nation, or as a group, it gives them a sense of superiority without doing anything significant. In other words, claiming other people’s work or contribution boosts one’s ego without doing anything in real life. It gives pleasure without any effort. Pleasure is one of the seven core instincts in the human brain (anger, fear, panic-grief, maternal care, pleasure/lust, play, and seeking). 

We Human beings have invented so many things for pleasure, Racism is one of them and the lazy ones created it. When practiced by influential people, it resulted in Mass destruction. Concentration camps of the Nazi Germany is one among many examples.  

Another thing to consider while discussing Racism is that Racism is inherited by kids, taught by society & schools. That must be Shocking to learn, but that’s true. All the people born in the Mid & Late 90s must have witnessed and probably suffered because of Racism in one or another way around the world. It was very evident worldwide in the early 90s. Kids of mid & the late 90s learnt it from elders of their society, some practiced it & some who were progressive, discarded it.

Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”, originally published in 1899, is an excellent example of how Intellectuals accepted Racism.

Racism around the World

That does not mean only British colonialism was the reason behind widespread Racism. For this, we have to look at how Racism was predominantly present in one or another form worldwide.  

Yuan Massacres of Muslims in China Discrimination between Indigenous Malay people & descendants of Chinese Immigrants in South East Asia. Aryan Dravidian theory, caste-based discrimination in India. Though the Qur’an expresses no racial prejudice, ethnocentric prejudice towards black people is widely evident among medieval Arabs for a variety of reasons. Prosecution & Hatred towards Jews in Europe is not hidden from anyone in the present world.

Racism against Blacks & Browns in the Western world is not new. Even in the 21st-century, Racism is present in various parts of the globe. We have the Shia-Sunni conflict in the Middle East. Another element added by Britain’s colonialism is the Arabs vs Jews conflict. Discrimination based on cast, facial features in India. Uyghurs & Tibetans in China. The xenophobia of Russia. The Racism that South-East Asian people faced worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic is evident. 

Racism is just a concept formed by the Human mind in different forms in different parts of the world, practiced for centuries, harmed billions, killed millions. Just an idea to give pleasure to a person as a community.  

We need to throw away these soft cushions of pleasure that we keep under our heads to make the world better. The need to appreciate the beauty of diversity & Humanity. The need to realize that we don’t need to dominate others to be the best. We can be the best in ourselves by contributing towards the benefit of Humanity.