Racism

Over the last several months I’ve heard more and more stories of people being labeled racist simply because they were born with less pigmentation than others. That’s it. No other reason other than the lack of pigmentation.

Not because they’d done anything mean, illegal or blatantly rude to anyone who happened to have more pigmentation than they did, but simply because of their lack of pigmentation.

In one case a judge told a three year old victim of a crime that the criminal, who happened to have a great deal of pigmentation, didn’t deserve a tough sentence for the crime of terrorizing this little three year old because the three year old was racist. Why? You guessed it. That poor child didn’t have enough pigmentation.

Now I’ve looked up the definition of racist, just to make sure I wasn’t forgetting what I learned all those years ago back in school, but according to dictionary.com racist and or racism means feeling your race is superior to another race.

So the amount of pigmentation someone has cannot possibly determine whether or not they are a racist or not. Their actions and words can, though.

And when I was in school the first thing they taught me to determine a racist is someone who judged someone based solely on the amount of pigmentation they had.

So calling me a racist simply because I lack said pigmentation would make you the racist, not me, because I’m not the one judging you on the amount of pigmentation you have. I’m judging your words and actions.

So everyone out there who are blessed with a great deal of pigmentation, not everyone who unfortunately lacks pigmentation is judging you on your overabundance of it.

We can however judge you on your actions.

If you are going to rob, steal, beat up defenseless women and children, use vulgar and profane language in public, walk around half dressed and your clothes falling off of you, yeah we can judge that. I don’t care how much pigmentation you have.

If you want to be respected as human beings, act like it.

Respect those around you.

Pull up your pants and clean up your language.

Stop blaming the world for your woes and get a job. If there isn’t any where you live, find a way to better your situation, like going to school and making yourself more employable.

There are people of all levels of pigmentation who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made something of themselves without breaking any laws.

I sincerely doubt Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned the world we have today when he declared “I have a dream”.

He didn’t want those with lots of pigmentation turning the table on those with little, he wanted us all to live together as equals.

But that’s never going to happen if we continue to see an issue of pigmentation, something determined by our genes, as something to divide us.

Pigmentation is only skin deep. Underneath that we are all human beings.

When we can remember that, we will finally achieve equality.