Racism

The word racist is an ugly word. It immediately conjures up images of white robed people burning crosses and hanging black people from trees. No, not a pleasant word at all.

It is also "over-used." Let me explain.

My heritage is strong Native American. Both sides of my family tree in the not too distant past married "full-blooded" Native Americans. Cherokee on my mothers side and Choctaw on my fathers side. We also have a smattering of Wyandot (goodness knows where that came from). In essence, using the Old West term for it, I am a 'breed.' Granted, through the "watering down" process that comes with generational growth, I am only about one-quarter Native American. Not a lot, but enough that the US government uses that as a gauge for handing out benefits. Interestingly, none of my family are eligible. Why? Because our ancestors did not have reservation numbers. The reasons for this I won't go into here.

So when I fill out the ethnicity forms I always have to pick the "other" box. Because I am not "White Caucasian" and living in the UK, they do not have a box with "mixed" that includes Native American. At any rate I do not think of myself as "white" nor do I think of my self as Native American. I just think of myself as a person.

The same way I think of other people.

But I have had people in the past accuse me of racism. Generally because I am upholding a rule that they do not like. I have said in the past, "I am not racist, the white man slaughtered my ancestors and stole their land, they were forced to live in hellish places and were given numbers that were in most cases tattooed on their bodies. I'll put my ethnic background against yours any day." This usually stops the accuser dead in their tracks.

It bothers me though, that people feel the need in this day and age to pull the "racism card." Yes I know that racism still exists. But people who suffer these out-dated attitudes are ignorant. I don't just mean academically. All racists maintain that "pure blood-lines" are tantamount to superiority. I think if they were a little more intelligent, they would realise that "pure blood-lines" are practically non-existent.

As for the people who continually throw out the Racist Card. Please stop. Just because you hear something you do not like or feel like you've been ignored or even mistreated. Stop for just a moment and see if maybe these things happened because of you personally and not just because of your ancestral background or ethnicity.

Like I said racist is an ugly word. And until we can get people to stop bandying it about, it will continue to blight the English language with it's ugliness. Let's try to eradicate this word's existence by refusing to utilise the word and utilise its definition.