Short Monologue

SAMIRA: I have to admit, it surprised me that on a campus like ours, something so disturbing would happen.  I don’t mean to say that everyone here is free of any kind of prejudice.  Of course, everyone has their assumptions, their own view of reality.  I guess it’s just that people here are better at hiding it.  Our racism or sexism, or whatever ism is subtle.  It’s in looks and comments and comfort zones.  It’s funny really, being someone who blends in relatively easily, someone will make a joke or a comment without realizing oor forgetting that I’m half Indian, or half white. It really gives you a chance to see what people are like when they’re not being polite or PC.  Sometimes I wouldn’t even consider these people particularly racist, they’re just…I dunno, living in their own world I guess, out of touch with other peoples’ reality.  But even so, we like to think of ourselves as above all that.  As if, somehow, based on our education and our “multicultural” campus, we’re enlightened.  Take the states schools, for instance, they’re in the paper all the time for racist taunts that are made at football games and basketball games, and the post-9/11 attacks on pretty much anyone who looked remotely non-white.  When those things happen we look at them in disgust and say “how can they do things like that.  Don’t they know how racist they are?  But they do know and sometimes, I think that kind of racism is better.  You can tackle it head-on, because it’s so blatant. They fully admit they’re racist and with the right coercion maybe you can start to change their minds,  But people here, my friends, they’d get so offended if you ever suggested to them that what they say or do could be racist.  How do you tackle that?  How do you educated people who think they don’t need educating?