Racism
During my time at college I had to go through a race awareness course. We were given the chance to try and understand what racism is and what it is like for those who suffer with it. It was a good thing to do and left me noticing a lot more of the hurtful talk (and worse) that goes on.
Recently the BBC has gone undercover to expose the kind of racism that is still very real in the UK. Of course we could excuse it on the grounds that it is only a few families that are responsible.
It always seems to me that there is a wider issue involved than racism because we all tend to get roped in to talking about people that degrades them or puts them down. It could be something as seemingly innocent as a nic-name or something as hateful as blaming a group of people for the way things are in society. I’m sure no one would want to go as far as the fascists did in WW2 but small comments have habits of growing in to big beliefs.
Then again what effect do our comments have on children who are listening to our words. There is nothing more humbling to a caring parent to hear a comment about someone (or worse a group of people) repeated back on the lips of an innocent child.
No doubt some will see my views as political correctness gone mad but whilst I fight against a lot of political correctness I do understand some of the power of words to offend and degrade people. I do believe that it is right to point out to someone when they are going wrong but there are ways of doing this that don’t degrade people.
I don’t think Jesus would have anything to do with degrading talk about people because of their: race, gender, views, sexual preference, or religion and so I will seek to follow Jesus’ example. May God forgive me when I fail.
