I'm working on my cases for the Unionville tournament tomorrow...::groan::. I have to get up at 6 tomorrow. I'm gonna be dead by the time I go out tomorrow night. I'll probably fall asleep in the theatre. Speaking of theatres, I went to see Hotel Rwanda with Brett tonight. It was ok. The movie itself was so-so, but the impact afterward was great. It really makes you think about everything around you in a totally different, enlightened way.
Basic info: Rwandan genocide was like this: civil war between the Hutu (majority) and the Tutsies (minority). When Belgium occupied Rwanda in the 60s, they took the Rwandan people and picked out the tallest, lightest-skinned, smallest-nosed Rwandans they could find...they were the "whitest" black people, and they dubbed the "Tutsie race" were put in charge as the ruling class. The rest, the Belgian-proclaimed "blacker blacks," were dubbed Hutus. When Belgium left, the Hutu came to power, and the resentment they felt manifested itself tangibly when they banded together to kill the Tutsies and all of their children.
Now, you'd think that the Hutu had a point, but think about it: they were killing innocent people whose ancestors had been selected to be rulers. What are they solving? Nothing. What are they doing really? Showing unrestrained, raw hatred for oppression and manifesting it in the form of killing what looks to them like the enemy but is really innocence. I dunno, go see the movie, you'll get what I'm trying to say...
I left the theatre feeling wise and pacifical. Then I saw the gun-violence video games outside the theatre (the ones where you hold a plastic gun and shoot people/zombies/whatever). Before I went in, I saw it and didn't really care. When I left, there were two kids, young boys probably about 8, playing it, their parents right behind them, smiling. Really happy. Really okay with it. I was sickened. I was physically ill. To see my culture's future being subconsciously altered to be benign to violence was very disturbing. And what's more, I realized I enjoy games like 007, etc. in a certian mindset. But that movie skewed my viewpoint in a very positive way. We may understand that what's on the screen is on the screen and real world life is different, but knowing that does not stop the subconscious affect it has on you; you become indifferent towards gore, horror, injustice. I understand there is a part of the human subcortex, our instinct, our being that revels in violence, but this isn't even revelling. It's just dead, a total lack of emotion towards it. Apathy towards poignancy is the most deeply disturbing thing I have probably ever seen.
I also thought about what racism really is. Race is a matter of viewpoint; there is not set definition for "race." The Rwandans were one race before the Belgians came and told them that they were different from each other. They split them into two groups, Hutu and Tutsie, and told them that these divisions exist. They were one race before Belgium came. Through the statements of the Belgians, they became two races. I think a race is defined as a group of people that feel united as a large fellowship, a community. Rwandans felt that before. Then they were told they were different from each other. And they belived it. That's what's bad. Their instinctive fear of difference, of change, put them in a position to quickly accept the idea of a difference, a barrier, an anymosity whenever it is brought up. The Belgians came in to a country, took a race and told them that they weren't a race. Because race is a subjective term, and the Belgians' statements played on human instinct, Rwandans saw themselves differently. Friends became enemies, all because they were told by other people that they were not friends. They were different. I just can't get over that: they were told that they were not a family. They were told they were not a race. They were told. To me, that is amazing. Other people defined their existence for them, and they let it happen. They let the Belgians create difference between them. They were told they were not the same.
This applies to us today, as well. We let ourselves be told that there is a black race and a white race. We let ourselves be told we are different. Not the same. Not family, not one race. Granted, there a physical differences, but these skin pigment names are not giant cardboard boxes into which we dump living, breathing human beings. The difference between a British man's skin and a Kenyan's skin seperates them as much as the difference between a Hutu's nose and a Tutsie's nose. How much is that difference? As much as we let it be.
Do we want these arbitrary, irrelevant differences to fragment humanity into different "families," struggling to live together in this world? Do you want to take our race, our universal race, and say it is not one race but many because of differing nose shapes, flesh tones, and mindsets? There is no right or wrong answer as to how many races exist: there is only a choice. Me, I choose to believe there is only one race; our race.
