When people induce racism #stopracismnow

What happens when someone is inducing you to think in a "racist" manner?

I will talk for myself here: I have never believed that no human being is different. We are all sons and daughters of the Earth and we all should have the same rights and the same treatments. Since I was a little kid, I always treated everyone the same.

Of course many years later I understood that not everyone had the same conditions to thrive in life, that not eveyone had the same rights, that not everyone was probably so "priviledged" as I was. And that broke my heart. My innocent little heart.

When I hear stories of people saying "when you look at this person what do you think?", and they seem to induce us to think that we tend to think in a certain way and for me that just doesn't exist. For example: person B shows me a picture of a black woman and says "what comes to your mind? (...) Because often people think she is a refugee, a person that has a hard life". Well, I never thought that when I saw her picture, I just thought she was a person and she could be whatever she wants to be. But as person B effusively induced me to think there was something "wrong" with her, then I started to see her in a different way. A way that I don't agree, a way that makes me feel sad to think that people see her in a different way.

This is indeed a very complex theme and hard to explain in a short text. But it came to my mind now and I wanted to share some of my thoughts. I would love to learn more from people that has suffered and have tried to change the way the world sees them.

Hopefully we will get to a point where we don't have to even think about those themes anymore, a time where people can just coexist in harmony and have the same opportunities to share their talents with no boundaries. The world is so big and our talents are so many that is such a shame to waste those talents just because of a lack of empathy.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and may we be clever and bold to overcome all the obstacles in our way.

Love,

Juliana.