I haven’t blogged a whole lot before, but it isn’t exactly something completely alien to me. I thought since I’ve been given the opportunity to create a blog, to make the topic something which I think needs to be addressed and discussed: the seemingly everlasting issues of racism and prejudice.

Many, if not most people are of the opinion that racism has decreased drastically within modern day society. For the sake of preserving the maximum level of relevancy, I will talk about the United States. There seems to be a notion amongst many that racism has no reason to exist within this country. It is understandable why one may share such an opinion. After all, the United States in particular has had a long, grueling, difficult battle against open displays of racism, such as segregation of schools and other public facilities, slavery, etc. Admittedly, our country has made great strides in combating racism and giving all races the opportunity to live equally prosperous lives. However, is it nearly enough? I don’t think so.

Racism is still alive and well. We may not have states where black people are being forced to the backs of buses or are being forced to drink from segregated water fountains, but racism does not start with these open displays of prejudice, the foundation of a racist person is inside their heart. So this begs the question: can we really stop people from being ignorant, or racist, or prejudiced?

It would be a very difficult task to attempt, for the simple fact that there is no guaranteed way for one to change how somebody feels about a sensitive topic such as racism. A perfect example is the recent controversial comments made towards the newly-crowned Miss America, Nina Davuluri. Ms. Davuluri is an Indian-American, born and raised in the United States, however after her win, she had more than a few comments made towards her, calling her a “terrorist” and several geniuses commented “ARAB people winning Miss AMERICA? What is going on?!” Now some degree of justice was done to these people, as their tweets and twitter accounts were publicly displayed by sites like buzzfeed.com and so many of them were forced to delete their accounts, make them private or apologize. Some were not so apologetic and kept their accounts up; seemingly an act of defiance. Despite thousands of angry tweets, many of these people were unfazed and held strong to their beliefs, which goes to show you how difficult it is to force a change of heart. It seems as if there is no way…

…Or is there? Let me back up for a second. Did I just say people commented on the ridiculousness of an Arab woman winning Miss America? I did, and these are quotes by real people with, unfortunately, real twitter accounts. One quote from this buzzfeed article quoting a twitter user: “How the fuck does a foreigner win miss America? She is a Arab! #idiots.” Maybe they glossed over the fact that Indians are not Arabs, and that they are nowhere near the same thing, but I am pretty sure a decent education would have prevented them from saying something ignorant like that. Would it have stopped them from saying something stupid? Probably not, but the stupidity would probably be less apparent. Perhaps the key to defeating ignorance is a good education? Stay in school, guys.

Despite what I just said, racism rolls on and on. Who knows if the person sitting across from you, or even next to you, on the train is a closet racist who so happens to have a problem with who you are? There’s no radar for that. Maybe we’re better off without one.