Collegiate Times

I have wanted to write about the topic of this column for a very long time. It has always fascinated me and provoked various questions from within.

Before I reveal the topic, I want to start off by asking — what’s on your bucket list? Getting a good job, having a happy family, owning the expensive car you have always drooled over or doing something adventurous?

Among these, another strong contender may be going on a world tour. Although it might slip to the bottom of your list as you grow up and see the world more realistically — rationalizing it’s almost impossible to achieve — at some point in life, you know you’ve wanted to go on a world tour.

I know I have and would still love to. I’ve always wanted to go to Finland to visit Moomin land. Or to Tanzania just because it sounds like a European country to me, when it is really an African nation.

I want to go to the Bahamas to see the pink sandy beaches and Thailand to praise the architecture of pagoda-styled temples. I can go on with my list but that’s not the focus of my column.

Where I am trying to go with this example of world tours, is that we are ignoring something that’s readily available to us, yet we are craving to go after something that requires great effort to achieve.

We brag about having been to this place and that, act knowledgeable about different cultures, but how come we can’t be respectful and kind to the people from the very countries we once spent a marvelous time in?

Yes, I am talking about racism. We love to spend a weeklong vacation in a famous resort in Mexico, but we can’t break away from the stereotypical definition of Mexicans when we run into one in America. I wanted to write this article soon after I got e-mails last year regarding racism against minorities and how they were forced to transfer to colleges back in their hometowns.

As explained by my sociology professor Bill Snizek, we Americans tend to be ethnocentric when it comes down to cultural or ethnic diversity. As he was giving a lecture on culture and social structure, he mentioned that we Americans tend to judge behavior of other cultures by the standard of our culture. I can’t agree more with him.

We start judging people just by their color, race, ethnicity, culture and accent before even getting to know them. Just because other cultures do things differently, we tend to look down upon them. When someone’s culture doesn’t match with our “American culture” we automatically crinkle our nose and our “judgmental radar” goes off.

Why is it that the most diverse nation in the world, regarded as the “melting pot” and the most democratic nation on Earth, is still twined in social issues like racism when we are supposed to unite together to fight against the national threat — terrorism?

Why is it that the phrase “United we stand, divided we fall” applies during times of emergency but goes back to status quo afterward?

By this I mean back to the stereotypical mentality of differences in ethnicities.

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A version of this article appeared in the Sep 30 issue of the Collegiate Times.