Racism, some might think it's a growing headache in this world, and then there’s some who openly address the matter as ‘no big deal’. Children, teenagers and adults have faced at least some sort of discrimination in their lives and sometimes it’s taken as far as discriminating against their race and religion. Britain itself has been known to be a partially racist country, this was addressed very clearly in 2012; a shocking number of 87,000 racist incidents that had occurred in schools left parents in a state of realisation that this was a big and growing issue, even in a country like ours.

Leena Yousef was born in Illinois with a Palestinian background, after asking her what she thought about racism she simply stated that ‘it’s disgusting’. She continued to tell me about her personal encounter with a racist doctor specialising in plastic surgery. ‘It was my first week of wearing my headscarf and my first confrontation with anyone professional...’ she explained, ‘I was very confident before I walked in’. In an intimidating voice, the doctor then continued to ask her questions about why she had a scarf around her head whereas her 15 year old daughter didn’t, he continued to ask her questions which weren’t related to the consultation or the appointment but were related to her race and religion. She also informed me that the doctor had been speaking to her very loudly and when she asked why he was doing so, he responded with ‘oh, I thought you wouldn’t understand English’. Leena was hurt and felt much disrespected so she left. Her experience shows that it is a very personal problem that many people face not just in Britain, but around the world.

However, a contradicting view came across when I asked the same question to a teenager in Canada called Chris. He said ‘I know it’s a big deal, but some people don’t realise it’s the internet and nothing’s going to change’. Chris believed that racism was most common on social media such as Twitter, Facebook and so on. He admitted that he had been posting racist content on Twitter and said that he posted it as ‘a joke’ that ‘went a little too far’ he adds, ‘I care about what people say…I know I shouldn’t be the one who makes it worse’, he finishes to say that he ‘posts stuff that I find funny’.

Chris gained a lot of attention from people across Twitter due to a picture that had been posted with connotations on the topic of terrorism and Muslims. After many people saying it was disrespectful and horrid he decided to keep the tweet and to cause even more commotion he proceeded in pinning the tweet, which made it the first thing people see on his account when they click his profile.

Racism might be a technical problem for some of us and while the majority of the public experience this in real life, it is easier to sit behind a screen anonymously and post things that you wouldn’t really say in person- due to the big impact it may have on others. It is very clear that racism is an openly discussed problem in society; even though it has horrible outcomes, it still isn’t going away nor is it decreasing.

 

By Misha Saleem.