Kira
Schiavone contributes Part II on her series on Racism - After
"Mandatory Minimums," she goes after the people who attack holidays and
ask us to "Bend Over Backwards" to make themselves feel more
comfortable while our kids go with out...
Cries of the Vintage Warrior
"Bending Over Backwards"
- Opinion by Kira Schiavone-
June 28th, 2005
Racism and religion are touchy issues for obvious
reasons. I’m tired of stepping lightly around my opinions to avoid
being lynched or labeled as prejudiced. I’m not prejudiced; I’m calling
things as I see them. And I won’t stop just to be politically correct.
We’re bending over backwards to accommodate these people who insist on
political correctness. What is political correctness? Certainly not the
same thing as proper etiquette.
There’s a double standard here. I’ve seen
African-Americans in my school do some things that no one else could
get away with, and then going for the “they’re racist, that’s why
they’re accusing me” defense. And it’s working for them. They’ve
avoided getting into trouble completely. Anyone else seeing a problem
here? No one contradicts them because it wouldn’t be politically
correct to do so. And that is where we’re taking political correctness
too far. We’re being racist in the other direction now by letting
people off easier due to skin color.
Then there’s the religion issue. Now, I know
religious holidays are forbidden in schools (case in point: it’s a
solstice concert rather than a holiday concert), but really, why can’t
we have a Halloween party? Halloween is a nationally recognized
holiday, and if anyone in the school other than me actually knows the
original meaning, they have yet to show it. I realize that it was a
public school I was going to at the time. A group of students wanted to
have a Halloween party, simply because students go for any excuse to
have some candy and get out of schoolwork for an afternoon. None of the
students in the school had any care for the religious meaning of the
holiday. It looked like we were about to get a party, too, but then one
student stated that Halloween was against his religion. Well, for our
teachers, that was enough. The real problem here is that there were
cupcakes at our bake sale with Halloween things on them and he didn’t
take offense to that. No one noticed this behavior except me, and when
I mentioned it to a friend, she seemed to think I was being either
obsessive or completely crazy. Well, maybe I was. I still think this
signifies that Halloween doesn’t really offend him and that we can’t go
on like this.
Remember that solstice concert I mentioned earlier?
Well, some of the parents objected to the singing of Christmas songs
during the concert. Of course, no one objected to the Kwanza song or
the Hanukah song. The same person who objected to the Halloween party
later suggested a Kwanza party and took offense when I stated that
since Kwanza is an African-American holiday (which it is) and is
therefore not celebrated by everyone in the school, we couldn’t have
it. I nearly got into trouble for that one, too. This is another
example of how we are bending over backwards to be politically correct-
if I’d said the same about a Jewish or Muslim holiday, I doubt there
would have been the same fuss over it. The only reason I escaped
punishment was because the methods used with the intention of punishing
me turned out to not be entirely legal. Yet, when that student objected
to Halloween on the basis of it being against his religion, he was
never punished. See the double standard here? I was punished unfairly
because the person accusing me was African-American. And that’s the
only reason.
I’m not denying that racism against
African-Americans is a problem. It’s a big problem, one that we should
stop. But I do state that we will never be able to stop it until we
start treating them exactly like everyone else. That means no special
treatment to anyone because of the color of their skin. None of this
nonsense about racism being any more of a big deal than the prejudice
against Muslims. In all cases, responses should be equal. Even if it’s
a racist remark about a Caucasian.
Kira Schiavone is a high school student who's working on becoming a
professional writer, and enjoys reading and writing rants for the
Fedora Chronicles.
Read Kira's Previous Articles...
