explaining racism

@Eden1919 , thanks for bringing this up. I have an Aboriginal facebook friend who feels very strongly that people need to do their own research instead of asking POC to relive traumas by doing the work to educate them. I just found this article that supports your mood. https://medium.com/@realtalkwocandallies/white-people-stop-asking-us-to-educate-you-about-racism-69273d39d828 I go through life with working definitions from my limited vantage point as well as ongoing questions such as - how much is Aboriginal culture and how much is post-colonised survival culture? Or recently I tried to get closer to resolving my earliest Christian Creationist influences by emailing Creation Ministries and asked, "Why do they say Australian Aboriginal culture is the oldest living culture?" In the last few years I feel like every stand I've taken has been "aborted" or at least challenged, forcing me to learn and make room for a deeper or more innocent or peaceable understanding of my view. But where I take a stand now is in the everyday boundaries I maintain against too much pressure so I can create and protect the person I need to be to preserve my heart health and stay where I work. @Eden1919 I hope you will feel some release from the tiring expectation to educate and more recovery time/strategies in between culture-gap collisions.

Racism is all around the world. All skins have a view. The naked truth is that its all linked to dominant or wannabe culture. I don't know what more to say about it. Although learned prejudices are a dominant factor, and over time it can be countered. But were all people and were all different.

Hey sorry to crowd this thread but I just also wanted to share other potential ways of categorising people when we reach an impasse with typical Western categories. According to Buddhism there are 6 realms of samsaric (suffering) existence and then also states of release from that suffering (nirvana). The higher realms are the human, the demigod and god realms - craving, desire, and attachment. The lower realms are the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms - anger, greed, and ignorance. My friend said recently that these categories seem a bit simplistic and I mean I had a dream a while ago that my brother was a shower head so what do I know but if we can perhaps begin to see the suffering more than the skin is that a shift in focus that you think could improve interactions or does that minimise the significance/value of skin as a dimension of any well-rounded individual, @Eden1919 ? Not so much asking to be educated as asking to what extent the support you're after here is related to walking through the world as a person of colour or rather the burden of assumptions imposed on you based on your skin colour?

@Eden1919 It is almost impossible to offend me.

Racism gives me intense anger and I must remove myself from the situation.

In fact I had to leave QLD last year because I could not tolerate the blatant institutional discrimination.

More power to you. I stand in solidarity with you.

G

Hi @Eden1919

I, very thankfully, was raised that every person on the planet is equal. And to never judge a person based on anything other than their actions.

I get very angry at the level of ignorance in our so called " Educated " society.

I however, am a middle aged white woman who will never experience what you do. You have no need to apologise for how you feel and what you experience. And you have every right to express your frustration.

I can only hope that you come across more " I'm sorry, I will try to educate myself " people than " why " people.

Hope you are having a good day 😊

thanks everyone for the replies and for listening to my rant i am feeling a bit better today about it all but yeah just had to let it out a bit.

Hi @Eden1919

Please be kind to yourself. From what I can gather, your responses to insensitive/ill-informed comments were relatively innocuous.

Also, as a 'hidden member' of a minority group, I get where your are coming from. It is tiring to be assigned the role of educator. Similarly, having to be an 'agent for change' can be mentally fatiguing.

So with that said, keep the fire burning and take comfort in knowing that the world is full of decent intelligent folk that recognise the individual worth of all people, regardless of their personal characteristic and background.

Stay strong and proud.