How I learned to hate

I was 15 when I learned how to be racist. That's not to say I had never thought, said, or did ignorant shit before. I probably had, but it wasn't until my freshman year of high school that I experienced the kind of  reaffirming conversation that cements bigoted attitudes in otherwise rational minds. 

The context was Hurricane Katrina. The storm had hit New Orleans, broken through the levees, and washed homes and lives away. As a result, floods of refugees made the six-hour voyage to my hometown of Houston, TX. The news-coverage was wall-to-wall, but being a kid that didn't pay attention to the world around me, the devastation flew right over my head.

The day I learned to hate was unremarkable except for two events. The first was my morning gym class. It was the only class I had with any refugees in it, and they sat near the back and had avoided changing into gym clothes like the rest of us. As best I can recall, the coach went over to them and told them they had to change into workout clothes for class. The next thing I remember, they moved to the back of the gym -- instead of the locker rooms -- and began changing. 

The second event, fueled by the first,  was a conversation I had walking home that day with a good friend. It was short and brutal. I told her that I realized that I "really did not like black people," and she affirmed my ill will and seconded that they were "so lazy." 

There's a laundry list of excuses I can throw out now. I was young. It was extreme circumstances. I was a byproduct of the South. It was before I knew anything about the world, about prejudice. But looking back, that's all bullshit. Racism is racism, regardless of context. The scary thing about this story is that it didn't seem malicious, but enlightening. We were just two good friends, bantering, happy to have found someone who could justify our beliefs.

I think that for most people the typical Asshole Racist is a wrinkled old redneck riding a motorboat with the Confederate flag waving behind, and because of this caricature we look over the insidious creeping of societal prejudices that seep into our own daily conversations.   

This, I think, is dramatized in South Asian culture. It's funny how the luxury of not-being-white can make a person feel they are immune to traditional norms of racial awareness. I have heard multiple South Asian friends claim, sometimes jokingly, sometimes scarily seriously, about being racist against East Asians. The height of this was when I got in an pseudo-argument with a friend about her marrying outside the South Asian community but staying within the Asian continent. Her response: "Oh God, I would never touch a Yellow Man!" This laughable statement from someone I consider pretty smart, if a bit classically suburban. 

What I wonder is: How can I, and how can we as a community, speak out against racial profiling or everyday prejudice we see in society when we're so poor at policing ourselves?   

I don't view this post as any sort of confessional to make me feel better about my instances of irrational bigotry. What I do think is that we, as individuals and as a community, need to be more self-aware. We need to constantly question our assumptions and our friends’ jokes. We need to avoid reflexive stereotyping simply due to the fact that a particular belief is so widespread. Cause hey, eventually someone will cross the line, and we'll all look like jackasses.