Tamding Sherpa
A person cracks a joke to a group of friends. However one of the friends is affected by the joke as it relates to him, but the person is unconscious about it. The friend then has two choices, to react or just let it be. The thing with our society is that people tend to react to such innocent statements and thus confirming that racism does exist in the society.
I came to the States a week before my college was to begin. On the first day of my school, I was in a shuttle bus of the school that took students to and from the train station. I had finished my classes and got on the bus a bit early and the bus was empty. The driver, an African American joked, ‘You are the only one’, to which I calmly replied, ‘I hope not.’ The driver seemed offended and pretty much screamed back asking me if I was afraid of him because he was black. I was very shocked by his statement that it was impossible for me to give him a sensible reply. It was something I had not expected and it scared me knowing that there were a lot of similar things yet to come. There are a lot of people out there who are unaware of such issues, but when a person reacts to an innocent statement, it confirms both the persons that such issues exists.
Churchill in his article, ‘Lets Spread the ‘Fun’ Around’ brings up an issue of the Native Indians who are mocked by sports teams who name themselves after the Native Indians. He responds to people who think such practices are not a big deal. But towards the end, he thanks those who have reacted accordingly like Stanford University, who chose to drop the word ‘Indians.’ To have a reputed university react to such issue shows and confirms that the problem does exists and that people need to work on it.
To conclude, everyone has had been through or felt racism. But the key here is to react appropriately. It is unnecessary to start a commotion when the person doing it does not know about it or is unaware of such.
It is impossible for a newcomer to completely avoid racial conflicts. Some say, it is important to learn about the culture before entering the country. But I can say, with experience, that learning about a culture in a book will not guarantee you total safety from such conflicts. However, the best solution would be to keep your thoughts and beliefs to yourself during the first few weeks overseas, until you have seen and learned the place enough, on how it works.
You are right, Tamding. Many situations can be made tense by misunderstandings due to cultural difference. Often, there are no easy answers. Do you think it is possible for newcomers to certain cultural contexts to avoid conflict?