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Natural recism

By: Qwaider

On:Saturday, February 24, 2007 9:10:21 PM
In:Thoughts
Viewed: (7359) times

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Rated 4.6/5 stars (205 votes cast) Thanks for your vote!

Could someone be racist by nature? By the way he thinks?

An interesting thing happened to me recently as I was going to a Red Lobster restaurant. There was a huge line and the lady at the door was taking names down to put them on the list in order

So I approached her, and she asks for a name to jot down in her list. And I say "Sam" she replied with, "Can you spell that?"

What I personally think is that she had already evaluated the way I look with her previous experiences and associated the way people look, with difficulty in writing their names. To the point that her question came out spontaneously.

It's interesting reading peoples gestures sometimes...

Now, the lady might not be racist or anything, but just associated the "looks" to "difficult names"

I guess on that note if I see a blond I'm going to naturally explain more so she can get it ;) ... (just kidding)

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« God bless you Khaled and JordanBlogs

5 days... »

Memories....

#1
Rain Drop
Said
On: 2/24/2007 9:42:46 PM

Could someone be racist by nature? my answer is yes... but they don't really mean it :)
i'll give u an example, (no offense every1, am just giving a general example!), if a white kid who lives in an area where there r no kids with darker skins, and he has never seen a kid with a darker skin be4, how do u think he's going to react when he sees 1???
this happened with 1 of my sisters more than 25 years ago, a Sudani little girl moved into the area, and it was the 1st time my sis sees one, and she started crying when she reached back home, coz she thought that there was smth wrong with the little girl... she was even afraid of getting near her! but when my mom explained things for her, she and that little girl became best friends :)
i wonder what would have happened if my mom didn't act this way... i bet that my sis would never have accepted the idea of others being different... and i guess that this is what being a racist is all about... not being able to accept the fact that we're not all alike...

#2
Palforce
Said
On: 2/24/2007 10:03:58 PM

LOL, Raindrop ma 3endkom TV? Kidding.

Qwaider, I think the movie "Crash" answers your question. When I first moved to the states I used to call black people 3abeed thinking its the norm, cause thats what everybody calls them back home, it took me a while to adjust and call them blacks or African American. (All the sudden I have a flash of Jackie Chan when he went to the bar and said: whats up ma shusmo?!)LOL.

Ok back to Red Lobster, Each time I go to a dine out I give them my name khaled, but I do make it easier on them and I go a table for kaleed.

These things dont bother me anymore, because I know we are all racisits or one way or another and those who have tolerence try to make it to a minimum.

My Sudany frined wanted to come and visit me yesterday and when asked his 9 yrs odl son to come lets go visit ammo khaled, his son told him: No, I dont feel like going to see white people!

My other firend's wife is American convert, and my friend is extremely open minded, but one time at walmart the wife with her 2 daughters were shopping, and her 6 yrs old was slacking behind , then she sudddenly screamed: Mom dont leave me alone with all these black people around!
LOL

All it takes is reaching out and educating others about us, the right way. Sometimes, laughing about our own stereotypes also helps.

OK this is one long comment, wait I have more, Did you go Sm? Saam?? or Saymn?
In the south you have to say Saym wella ma befhamo 3aleek.

LOL

OK I know whats wrong with me, its 2 p.m ew lessa mesh makel.

Excuse etakhbees.

Peace

#3
Averroes
Said
On: 2/24/2007 10:05:06 PM

I would've loved to see the look on her face had you told her to write down Qwaider!

#4
Vas
Said
On: 2/24/2007 10:17:10 PM

These "natural" theories leave me wondering every time whether they are not the best excuses one can imagine for destructive social behaviours. I think they spring from medicine and biology as a hasty generalisation. No, I do not believe that racism, macho attitude, chauvinism, homophobia, or xenophobia are natural attitudes. They are based on social identities and longstanding practices. Education, mass media, fairy tales, all mechanisms of defining ourselves through the other, play the key role: they transmit at a very young age the message of what is common and acceptable and what is weird or dangerous. Even worse, these general stances are the prevailing worldviews at a stage that the child cannot really depend on his/her own grounded critical thought and operate successfully with phobias. Phobia has a special feature: it multiplies itself adding new relevant ones and widening its circle.

#5
Rain Drop
Said
On: 2/24/2007 10:42:32 PM

lol Khaled :) we had 1, but it was much more fun playing with "wlad el 7ara" and the rest of the relatives, they were a real huge naughty gang of kids who enjoyed doing "ma2aleb" and devilish plans :) ... besides, my sis was just a tiny little kid, and we used to live in a private compound (hope the spelling is right) that belongs to the company dad worked in... they also had a gr8 club there with lots of fun stuff to do, TV was hardly on the list ;) i miss those days!!!

#6
Dima (an oriental blog)
Said
On: 2/25/2007 1:00:00 AM

Hi there. Qwaider i will give u the title of The Most Active Blogger. You can post about any incident you encounter! Keep it up!

#7
ابو شاكوش الطوبرجي
Said
On: 2/25/2007 6:59:20 AM

Yes, those people DO exist and they are called natural born racist! It is a built in thing, they have to go through surgery to get rid off ! and it does not always work!

#8
Naryat
Said
On: 2/25/2007 11:48:37 AM

:-)
I know this...
as a circassian, our outlooks are associated in arab countries with strange names too... a simple name like "Jan" might not be easily heared some times... It is notbeing racist or some thing, itsthat when a certain group of people have common similar visible characteristics (like light skin, dark eye brows, soft hair, small eyes and emenint cheeks in our situation) it is natural to associate such impressions to them...
Like my name for example :-) although it is so easy and has no strange letters or odd arrangement of letters, many people called me (Nayrat) rather than (Naryat), it is because the name doesnt belong to any previously recognisable theme...
So 3adi, 3adi jeddan ;-)

#9
afaf
Said
On: 2/25/2007 4:23:02 PM

u guys reminded me of what my son did once, we lived once in atlanta, and when we went to mcdonalds, it was mostly african american kids, so my son got used to it, not from the begining, but then one day white kids showed up and played together, he went to have lunch, meanwhile white kids wanted to leave home, so he goes screaming..."hey white kids, donot leave, i am almost done eating...." i was shocked and didnot know how to react.... now thank god he knows he canot talk about color of skins the way he meant it...he can talk about color of hair, clothes whatsever....it was really embarrassing....but had to admit i burst laughing inside of me....
i really donot know if this proves that we r racist by nature...not really cuz it is the way kids react when they see somethign new to them and cannot say it without using color of skins....
i thought that i was prejeduce or racist towards jews...and never thought one day i can even say hi to one jew....u know cuz the way we r brought up....do i consider this racist by nature...not really...cuz now i that i have dealt with so many of them, nice ppl...i am not longer prejeduce about it...i am not making any sense now...sah???
need caffiene....peace all....

#10
Emily
Said
On: 2/26/2007 2:20:02 AM

Racism is something that I've been thinking of frequently lately. I don't think people are racist by nature; I think it begins when children observe adults in their lives exposed to people of different cultures, and continues when the child either decides the adult's reaction is either correct or incorrect. I think the ultimate sign of acceptance of another race would be answering this question, "Would I allow my son/daughter to marry someone of that race/culture?"

In defense of the lady at Red L, maybe she had a friend/relative who was from another race that spelled his name differently and she carried this over to you. For instance, my little sister's name is Yu Mei or "May" for short. Technically, it would be spelled Mei. However, it's easier in the US to just spell it May. I think the fact that she asked you says that she is concerned w/getting it correct. If she thought you were lower class, than she wouldn't care at all.

#11
Qwaider
Said
On: 2/26/2007 11:53:38 PM

Rain Drop:
I have to agree with you. Sometimes we're racist by nature and we just don't mean it
Palforce:
That is so funny man, you cracked me up :) [And I felt guilty for laughing afterwards]
I said "SAM" and she had the empty look on her face as if I had said FGDFKVCZIWELKSXC in one breath
The good thing was the way I started spelling it, S-G-H-W-F-M-R-K ... he hehe
Averroes:
Guess what, When I first came to the US, it was easier to communicate "Qwaider" than "Samer" Soooooooooooo weird!
A friend of mine (Maher) he had the WORST time EVER! (not to mention my other friend Anas) :)
Vas:
I don't think I totally agree with you there, I'll explain in a separate post why I disagree with you ... so please check the new post
Rain Drop #2:
Same as my response to Vas, I'll explain my points in a separate post
Dima (an oriental blog):
Thank you Dima, I'm humbled with your complement.
اباشاكوش:
I think I will better explain that theory more in the post dedicated to vas, raindrop and now you
Naryat:
I totally feel with you, but quite frankly I find the Circassian features VERY appealing, and attractive, because they're acceptable, people might not show the ugly side of racism as much as the pleasant side of it...
Afaf:
I'm sure everyone was looking at YOU instead of him!! Giving you .. "the eye"
Emily:
Thank you for stopping by, you're always welcome here
And I think you're right, children do observe adults but they're also creative in addition to having instinct. Which is a very important thing.
And yes, that's one of the simple tests to see if one is racist or not against others.
She asked me because it's her Job :) She was writing the names down in the list. I don't want to go overboard and say that she is for sure having racist thoughts, but it did occur to me. (because she didn't even think about it, it was the spontaneous first reaction on her side)