Dear Editor,
Racism – prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalised.
Why does it still exist? Why?
This disease came about due to the ignorance of our ancestors; that was a long time ago. I grew up being taught that the human civilisation is the most advanced, and that it was ever-growing; but that’s not so. If we were a species who earned the right to be called the most advanced, why are we still allowing the past to dictate our present and destroy our future?
We are supposed to be one people, united regardless of colour, race, nationality, traditions, religion; I could go on forever, but you are smart enough to get the idea. We, the advanced species, are allowing the past, that past from which we should have evolved, to dictate our present and destroy our future.
No man, woman or child had control over the circumstances under which they were born; and no man, woman or child is inferior to any other man, woman or child; we are one, one for all, and all for one! But still we allow the past to dictate the present and destroy the future.
I speak, not for one, but for all. If we, humans, are worth all the knowledge and supremacy with which we are much gifted, why must we be the ones to destroy it all? Racism is a disease, one which we have the intelligence to cure! The cure isn’t violence, it isn’t vandalism, it isn’t conquest; the cure isn’t Science or Math. The cure is LOVE, RESPECT, UNITY, PEACE, MORALS, VALUES, PRINCIPLES; these are the cure to the disease.
Think of this: No one is born a racist. If you don’t believe me, then ask yourself if, when you were a child, you were racist. If you were not so, when did you become a racist? Was I born a racist? My answer is, “NO”. You were infected by racism flowing from the elders, who allowed their lives to be dictated and destroyed by the past. Hence, since they so dearly loved us and wanted racism to be cured, they did the most sensible things. They used racial speech in the presence of their children, thereby building their vocabulary for the future; and they did racial acts in the presence of children; thereby, again, strengthening their skills for the future.
For endless generations, this is how it has been. We, the adults, unknowingly instill the values of corruption and racism in the children, and then when the storm arrives, we start blaming this colour, that colour, and so on, and so on. We are all the ones to be blamed, one for all and all for one.
What I am simply trying to say is that we are smarter than this disease. I mean, come on! Why can’t we stop infecting ourselves, our children, the world, and start using our medication: LOVE, RESPECT, UNITY, PEACE, MORALS, VALUES, PRINCIPLES?
Forget about colour, the true colour of a man is the purity of his mind; and from what I am seeing, the disease of racism is not about colour or anything else, it’s a situation whereby all of our minds are polluted. The cure is right there, but it seems as if we like the disunity, it seems as if we like the violence, as if we like to see children suffer and families broken; it seems as if we are the pollutants.
As I have said before, we are continuing to allow the past to infect and dictate the present and destroy all of our futures!
I say let’s treat everyone equal if we want to save the Earth. We should feel grateful for the fact that we have so much knowledge about the universe and about our world. It is as if we are the guardians of OUR planet; as if we are supposed to take care of it, and care for all other species of plants and animals; but, instead, we fight between and destroy ourselves.
I say let’s make the disease, the word ‘racism’, go extinct. Let racism be a thing of the past, as it should have been a long time ago. It should be so forgotten that schools should stop teaching the topic, dictionaries should erase the word, and the internet should delete all of its data, so that new generations are pure and take their medication.
Let us see everyone as a special member of this large family, with one mother, the Earth, which we are to care for. From this point onwards, let us forget prejudice, take our medication, and stop the infection. From here onwards, we will forget the past and better the future, but as one species, one family in which no one is perfect but all are united! We, from this point in time, are the guardians of this world. Take your medication!
I live for only one motto: ‘UNITY, PEACE & LOVE’.
Sincerely,
Anand Vivakanand
