If I could conduct a research about any topic in
early childhood education (or the entire world), without any restrictions from
the reality of which we live; I would research and changed the many negative
perspectives of racism. Racism would
have an entirely different meaning other than the one we use today. Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess
characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to
distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races (Oxford
Dictionary, 2015).
This picture explains it better than anything that I could possibly say:
In my opinion,
racism is right there with money when you think of something being the root of
all evil. If we, as adults, could know
and understand that racism is ignorance; our lack of understanding of another
person’s cultural identity, and be willing participates to learn and understand
each other in our similarities and differences, we could do away with a lot of
issues that we face in our society and filtrate into our youth.
In our discussion
for this week, we are talking about research that can do harm minimal/maximum
harm to its recipients. I think that it
does optimal harm to not research was to prove to the world just how harmful the
teachings of racism are both long term and short term for our children. Our children are not born racist; WE teach
them racism! If we would conduct
ourselves as strong willed, strong-mind, and better composed human beings; we
should be able to find a way to think of the consequences behind our actions
and words towards one another.
I found this quote in an article that I read:
Racism is man’s gravest threat to
man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”
Abrahah J. Heschel (Jewish theologian
and philosopher, 1907-1972)
There is so much
power in just these few words. But there
is even more power in the one word, RACISM!
References
The AEGEEan. (June, 2012).
World without racism: Theory and
Reality. International Politics WG. Retrieved from
Racism. (2015). In Oxford Dictionary.com. Retrieved from
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/racism
I love this as a topic for research. This is something that I would have never actually thought of doing as a research topic and I wish I had! Racism is alive in the world today and it is sad when children are exposed to this. Children are born with no cares of color of skin, nationality, or anything negative. All a child see's is a friend and a partner. By doing research on the negative effects of racism, we can show the world how it can affect a child's life DRAMATICALLY. I feel that sometimes people think racism is non- existent and is gone. The reality of the situation is that racism is alive and is in many places. Racism is a vicious cycle that is passed down and learned from generation to generation. One day, I hope, people will see things as a child see's them and realize that everyone is unique and special in their own way! Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteTaina
This would be an amazing research topic. Children do not see color in the same way we do as adults. How true that children learn racism from their environment and their caregivers. That is so sad to me that we are still having these types of conversations. One of the things that really excited me about some of the readings from the Issues/Trends course is that as time goes on that white or black will soon be a minority as there are more inter-racial relationships and the lines between races will become blurred.
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