A couple of years ago I stumbled across a stand-up comedy
show by Chris Rock, I’m not a fan of his type of comedy because of the excess
use of superlatives commonly called insults or cursing. Anyway in this comedy
he was speaking on the subject of racism and he made a statement that at the
time I thought was quite bold. He said “Black people are more racist than white
people because black people hate black people too”. I giggled at the time and
shrugged it off but the words stuck in my head. Over the past couple of days I
have been drawn to think over the topic of racism and how it is still prevalent
today and upon looking through the mirror of introspection I saw that I have
been guilty of quite a bit of prejudice and as much as I would have liked to
sugar coat it, I could sense the underlying problem of racism in the cracks.
But this requires a bit of background
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| Black vs White, White vs White, Black vs Black. It's all wrong! |
When I arrived at Cyprus International University it took me
a while to realize the diversity that was on campus. We had 43 different
nationalities represented, now we have somewhere over 50, and in the beginning
it was exciting. I got to meet people from Swaziland, I had not met any before even
though it is also in southern Africa. I got to meet people from Azerbaijan,
Ukraine, Turkmenistan and a lot more and it fascinated me how different we all
were. I noticed how Zambians were different from Zimbabweans even though we are
neighbors and I met a lot of Nigerians. Of all of these nationalities the two
that really fascinated me where the Azeri’s (Azerbaijan) and the Nigerians
(Nigeria). They were strong willed, loud and were the most representative of
their cultures.
Now diversity will either result in productivity or
conflict, seldom do you find middle ground. And thanks to sin in the world conflict
is present more often than not. Prejudice and racial issues have their heart in
a failure to accept another person’s look, outlook or behavior and to put them
below your own. It demeans the other person and elevates your view of yourself and
people similar to you. These views get exaggerated in the presence of conflict.
And I have seen this first hand on campus in statements such as I just don’t like,
and this is me putting it mildly, people from so and so, where so and so is a
country or a place. Nigerians suffer from such treatment more so than others,
whether they know it or not. And its not even that the problem is them, I
firmly believe if it wasn’t the Nigerians it would be some other nationality because
the problem at the heart of it all is a failure to accept people who are
different from us for who they are and where they come from.
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| Accept and appreciate the differences |
Henry Fielding in his book A History of a Foundling: The story
of Tom Jones wrote something that I have carried with me for years since I read
the book in high school. He said, “When measuring a man’s actions do not use
your own bushels, he might be using a different standard altogether”. Now
whereas Fielding was speaking of a man’s intentions toward you and yours I think
the phrase can be extended to the complete measuring of people. The world would
be a pitiful place if everyone was like us, we enjoy so much from the symphony
of diversity that God created around us. We enjoy ranges of color, different
animals and plants and even among those animals and plants we see a variation
of species and we accept them all. And yet very often we look at another person
in terrible light because they are not like us, we accept variety on all things
except human beings. It’s a pitiful situation.
Enough of the problem, let’s look at the way forward. We
need to learn to accept other people for their differences be it difference in
language, dress code, accent or even food and musical interests. If we keep
confining ourselves to the small group that make us feel comfortable and
understood we will never see all that is out there that we could benefit from
and enjoy. We should also seek to learn from one another. I have learnt quite a
bit from my friend from Azerbaijan, and yet if you spoke to me three years ago
I just knew his country because of playing a game called “country game” at
home. I have seen virtue in Nigerians that I have not seen in my own countrymen
and it that is just what I have seen from two nationalities, not even the other
fifty plus. Note to self, write something about what I have learnt from a
number of people just before I graduate. Another thing we should acknowledge is
God is infinitely smarter than all of us combined, he knew what he was doing
when he made the world with so many diverse people groups, and it’s on us to
enjoy the diversity.
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| Nuff said |
Well and good we know the principle, now for the practice
and this is the hardest part. Our prejudices will not be thrown aside overnight.
It’s a lifelong battle, after all we are not too keen on things that are
different from what we are used to. We should be able to go out of our way to
talk to different people, there are tons of great people out there, we just
need to open our mouths. Occasionally talk to a stranger, you never know who
you might bump into and it does not always have to be someone of the opposite
sex. There’s more to life than that, trust me. You can occasionally visit
people, it never hurt anyone as I said before, there are tons of great people
out there. Lastly walking out of your comfort zone every once in a while, it’s
good for you
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