Hi, my name is Mara and I’m here today to discuss some instances where some racially unjust comments were made or posts were put out there, or actions that someone took and we’re going to look at these instances and see were these people being racist or were they just not educated enough to understand the connotation of what they were saying. So to start out we’re going to look at Rachael Kirkconnell, if you don’t know who she is, she’s from the show The Bachelor. I’m sure many of you have heard of the reality TV show or even seen it, but it’s a show that involves a single bachelor, and this year that was Matt James who is actually a black male, and that in itself came as a big surprise and relief as he is the first black male to be cast as the lead in the 25 seasons that the show has been airing, but we’ll discuss that issue later on in the podcast, but as the bachelor, he has a pool of women who he goes on dates with and builds a relationship with, and at the end of the season, he is expected to choose one woman who he wants to be with, and could potentially see himself marrying. And this year that woman was Rachael Kirkconnell, but after the show aired a social media post surfaced of Rachel attending an antebellum-themed college party. In the photo from 2018 you can see Rachel along with many other sorority girls dressed in antebellum-style dresses, and for those of you like me that at first didn’t understand the connotation of antebellum. Here’s a little background for you so the antebellum era is deeply associated with racism because it was a time of plantations and slavery and the Civil War. So, it was obvious that Rachel could have come off as racially insensitive or racially ignorant because she wasn’t fully aware of what she was doing and she didn’t understand it was wrong, but I don’t know if we could call her racist because her intentions were not direct her intentions. I feel like she didn’t really have intentions, it was more of, she wasn’t aware that what she was doing was wrong but if she would have taken a step back and maybe thought about it and thought of the connection. She would have realized, oh this is wrong and I shouldn’t be doing this. So the two words, racial ignorance and racial insensitivity. These are two words that are interesting to look at because I think a lot of people could fall under these categories at some point in their life. And I think that maybe because not everyone understands what blacks have went through, or what they are currently going through in their struggles. I think at times these two words are better used for describing the way people act towards a group of a different race than the word racism, because to call someone racist is not a small accusation, because to me that being racist is being antagonistic towards a group of different race, and I feel that the majority of people are not trying to be this antagonist, but what they say, might come off that way, because they’re not educated enough to understand this concept or this injustice. I don’t think it’s okay for people to say oh I wasn’t educated enough on the topic, or oh, it’s common where I’m from, or it’s common where I grew up, because you should educate yourself. Educate yourself on our history in the history of different cultures, because people are going through suffering, and it’s important to know about this topic so that when you do encounter different cultures or different people, you know the right thing to say and you can be respectful enough to say the right thing, and act appropriately because no one should say oh yeah I’m not educated on that so it’s okay for me to say this, because it’s not you need to educate yourself on what is going on around you. So I’m gonna take another quote from the talk show from the bachelor so I remember the host saying, all history is meant to be remembered, but not all history is meant to be celebrated. I think you made a great point there. I mean everyone should be aware of what has gone on in our past, but we need to be aware of what should be our focus now in society. We shouldn’t focus on the bad things and celebrate the bad things, that’s something that we need to remember so it doesn’t happen again because we need to learn from our mistakes and move past them, we shouldn’t bring them back up and celebrate them because those are part of our history. That was not great. It wasn’t good and it shouldn’t be something that we should be proud of. The past definitely has had a major impact on today and on today’s society. So, what does it mean to be black in America? I don’t think I can answer this question fully because I’ve never had first-hand experience but as I was doing research, I noticed a bunch of different encounters and things that were brought up, and it was a lot of recurring stuff so I’m gonna mention some of those. When Matt James talked about the pressures of being the first black bachelor. He mentioned how he felt an extra level of scrutiny and it was interesting to see that he’s so critical of himself in making sure that he was able to adequately represent black men across the country. And he said he was careful of how he was speaking and how he represented himself because he didn’t want to come off in any way as threatening because that’s how black men are sometimes portrayed and they’re viewed throughout society. Matt saying this, made me think of another instance that my mom had told me about probably about a year ago. So, she was out to dinner with her friend one night, and her friend has two younger boys, they’re probably like 10 and 12 right now, and they’re adopted, and they are black, and she talked about how she told her kids, that you can’t always do the same things your friends do, like, if your friends decide to hop over someone fence, you can’t do that because there are people that are racist and they will take action against you and that could end up harming you. So it’s not worth putting yourself through that chance of something like that happening. When my mom told me that that really, that hurt my heart. These boys, they’re so young and their mom’s telling them this at such a young age, and what have they done to deserve this. Absolutely nothing. So it just made me think about the words that we talked about before being racially unjust or racially ignorant. And when I heard that those words kind of went out the window because at this point that is being racist, taking action against a black person on purpose and knowledgeably doing that, that is being racist, you’re going out of your way to discriminate someone based on the color of their skin. After all, there’s no biological difference between people, and no race is superior or inferior to another. They’re all the same. So, why are people still racist, what causes them to have this attitude or belief towards a certain person? I think one of the reasons is we hang around with people that are like us. So it’s normal to want to spend time with people that have the same interests background, culture, and language as you because it kind of creates a sense of belonging for everyone, and I feel like everyone needs to have that in some aspects of their life, but the downside to this is that it can also bring up differences between groups and over time this might lead to people thinking that their group is better than others. So how do we stop, racism, then? I don’t think we can ever technically stop racism I think it’s always going to be there. But I do think there are steps people can take to alleviate this issue, and that includes people learning about your communities, like what groups are there. What has been the nature of each of your relationships with these groups, and like what incidents have occurred in the past, that may be due to racial prejudice or racism, and I think it’s important for people to document these activities or at least try to remember them so that they can reflect on how they acted in those situations or see how other people acted in those situations. And I think it’s also important that people understand the depth of this problem. I mean it’s a problem that has gone on for decades (meant to say centuries), and while it has had some progress. It’s still, there’s still a lot that needs to be done to uplift the black community, and allow the people within the community to thrive within society and not have to fear, oppression within their own country.