Lack of Understanding of Racism

Earlier today I was talking about headphones on my bus. I go to a private school, and the kids there are very smart and down to earth, despite common stereotyping. I was telling my friend how Beats by Dre headphones were terrible, but they looked amazing and I thought the white ones looked better than the black ones. Immediately, a kid a few seats ahead of me poked his head up and accused me of being racist. A few other kids heard this and asked what I said, so I told them. They responded the same way, accusing me of being racist.

Now, this is sickening. Racism is such a terrible thing and yet even kids who go to a great school still don't know or understand racism. Is it their fault? No, not really. America needs to step it up and realize that this is a tough subject to talk about, due to the fact that it's a very touchy subject and saying something wrong might offend someone. But, I think kids need to learn about racism. We openly talk about it in my english class, because at the beginning of the year my teacher had a talk with all of us about it and explained all of this to us.

On the other hand, I also think the "Racism Card" is overplayed. There are two Asian girls in my grade, and my teacher mixed up their names once, and felt terrible about it, thinking it was racist and unacceptable. I argued that he had called me "Stephen", a kid who looks just like me (white, blonde hair, blue eyes and a boy) and hadn't thought that was racist.

So what do you think?
Should kids have to be taught about racism, sexism and possibly sexual orientation?
Or do you think that the "Racist Card" is overplayed?

 

Well there is a difference between the lack of maturity and the lack of understanding. From how you describe it, it seems that these kids lack maturity.

Did the teacher say that he felt racist and that the mistake was unacceptable? If not then you are just making assumptions about the feelings of others, and it is different when you mix up the names of males and females. Guys really don't care, but females are sometime touchy about that kind of thing. No matter how much people deny, everyone is racist to some extent. Even if it is subconscious and you don't even realize it, you are to some extent racist. It is just the way culture has worked up until just the last 100 years when globalization began to occur on a grand scale. Though racism is a serious subject and shouldn't be made light of.

tl;dr: Maturity and understanding are different, those kids sound immature.

 

Are you sure those kids weren't just kidding? I would think if they're as smart as you say they are they wouldn't be so quick to be offended over something as trivial as the color of some headphones.

 

To clarify, yes, they were immature and, no, they weren't kidding. I'm just pointing out that schools talk about a multitude of things and I believe that they should also be talked to and informed of this. Kids are constantly bombarded with talks about bullying and I think that this is just as serious of an issue. Schools need to pay more attention to this.

 

It sounds like they were joking. I know a bunch of people who do this just to get on other peoples nerves. It sounds silly, how old are these kids 12 or 13?

 

14 I think. But, back to the main point, do you think that schools should address these topics, even though it's a challenge to?

 

You are absolutely right. Racism has been blown out of proportion completely. It's got to the point where I stop and think before I say something to or about anyone that isn't white because it's so easy to be accused of racism. People need to be educated about racism in a fair, balanced way rather than constantly using black or coloured people as examples. It gives people a very wrong idea on what racism really is and just ends up with these people being positively discriminated against.

 

It was funny that you brought up the headphones....I'll get back to that in a moment.

Yes racism is ridiculous nowadays but not for the reasons you would expect when someone brings up the topic of "racism".
When someone says we have a problem with racism, you would expect it to be because people are being treated wrongly and rights are being abhorred simply because of colour and what not (on a very high level, racism is going to exist in one way or another in small factions but those are disregarded).

Yet, instead we're given a situation where racism is only regarded as the problem because people simply won't let it die. White people keep bringing it up out of some form of guilt or whatever, some black people bring it up because they feel mistreated, every race brings it up when you make a joke about them, everyone wants racism to go away but noones willing to give it up. I mean just look at black history month, its a reminder and a promotion of racism just in itself.

Now back to those headphones, it's funny how they were accusing you of being racist on the colour of an object whose sole purpose is to make money off of racism. Beats went off the same marketing style as Jordan's, and I wonder what their largest buyer demographic is hmm...