A Glance at Racism

By: Christine Nam

In the land that preaches about freedom for ALL, happiness for ALL, and quite frequently, equality for ALL, you would think there would be fewer problems with racism, sexism, and any other isms. But we often see that isn’t the case. It isn’t the one or two radicals that appear in the media that represent the population but often the gestures or the actions of each and every person that determines the presentation of the image produced by the population. Here are three moments when I felt both direct and indirect racism.

I was nine when I came to Indiana. My family went out to the local ice cream shop to celebrate moving in. Checking out the flavors, I had no idea of all the eyes that were on me. They weren’t malicious by any means, it was probably curiosity at seeing an “exotic” creature they’ve never seen before. An Asian. It was after I received my cone that I realized all the stares. Those stares were unfamiliar and at the time, I assumed they were there because they hated me. At the age of nine, I naturally started crying. In an ice cream shop, the favorite place of all little children, I was crying. Those stares did not physically hurt me, nor did anyone say a single word to me. But the slight glances and staring made me feel like a zoo animal, meant to be stared at for entertainment.

Another moment was when my mom offered my neighbors some apples as a gift. The next morning, we found one of the apples, half-eaten, thrown into our backyard. The apple did not hit us and was merely thrown into our backyard. However, it’s the backlash of a friendly gesture that hit us so hard. In my household, we often send fruits as gifts to our neighbors and they often do the same. To be met with such hidden hostility, it was a shock.

Two black teenage girls came to our door, wanting to sell some things. My parents tried to tell them that we were not interested in buying. However, they continued to insist that we had to buy something because the rest of our neighbors had done so as well. After we kept trying to get them to leave, they told us to “go back to our country”. We had not done anything that warranted those kinds of words yet they still were said. Why? Was it purely because of our race that we must hear those words? Or was it the only weakness they could probe at?

It’s not the one or two people that appear in the news that yell and shout who is the problem. It’s those little instances that add up to the bigger problem. It’s hard to change the perception of everyone but little by little, we can expand our voice and our message to those who will listen. There will always be a few who shout obscenities but if the majority are educated, the outliers will be soon to follow.