From a young age I was taught by my parents that we are all children of God. We were all born in love, equal and all here with the same purpose and existence. From my earliest memories all I remember is seeing friends in everyone regardless of race, religion or class. As I grew in age these fundamental beliefs, values and attitudes never changed!
Once I reached adulthood, travelled the world and started to see life from a bigger lens it quickly became evident that not everyone lived in the same manner, and I saw the levels of racism that exist around the world. Having been to America a bunch and lived in Asia and Europe for six years my eyes have seen a lot!
The ease and access to travel has made our world smaller, meaning our neighbourhoods are now more multicultural than ever before. Personally I love to live in a multicultural society and like immigration. For those who aren't so open and free thinking this has increased their level of racism and ugly acts as other races are now living and sharing the space. So what does it mean to me to be Colorblind?
Being Colorblind first and foremost means to be "blind" to another humans skin colour; meaning when you see, speak or communicate to another human being, don’t bring skin colour into any of the ways you think, feel or act in any and all circumstances, period. Treat everyone with the same love and respect, give everyone the same opportunity and rewards, regardless of race.
Racism is something in 2021 that unless you’ve literally been sleeping under a rock, you are well aware of! From the Police brutality, shootings and murders in America in which white police officers are killing black African Americans, from young kids to elderly fathers; through to the Asian community attacks and killings more recently. These few modern reminders only scratch the surface to a long history of racism that has existed around the globe for hundreds, even thousands of years, perhaps even since early existence.
My first question is where and how did racism start? And when I think about it personally, to me it is yet another place we can see “Evil” showing itself in form. If we strip back all that we know or believe, we know that there is “good and evil” in existence, and racism is in line with all the hate and evil acts we have in our world. In fact, even people of the same race, religion and class still have fights to the death over money, power and ego. Why? Because evil will always try to surface through everyone and anyone it can!
The second question I have is where have humans learned racism and judgement through another persons colour. And to me it is quickly evident firstly in the way the records are created and displayed, through modern powers and media. With a camera and a news outlet you can portray a group of people literally anyway you like, true or not, fair or not, and it is unfortunately then left up to the viewers to make their own truths from what they see. Representation through media has never been fair and by the looks of it, never will be. Propaganda has and always will exist!
So what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it? Will our voices and views be seen from the powers to be if we take to the streets in protest, if we share our disgust online through our social media platforms? The solution to me, right or wrong, powerful or not, starts with us as individuals. Everything we do, the decisions we make or do not make, the way we act and lead, can either support the fight and the cause, or it can flat out add fuel to the fire. What won’t serve any purpose is staying quite and doing absolutely nothing, that is for certain. So like many other problems we can see in our modern society, it really is time to speak up, shed light and share our voice on the values, attitudes and principles we stand for!
Personally I vow to use my voice and platform to spread my voice louder and more often that I have in the past. Although this is a very small start, there is plenty more to come, stay tuned!
I am Colorblind. Stand with me!
