In the United States, the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, triggered demonstrations and the unrest has spread across the country, but it shows no signs of ending.
The officer who choked him to death was a troubled man who had been the subject of 18 complaints in the past 18 years. The remaining three officers who were with this officer and did not stop the act were also charged.
One of those three men was from the Hmong, a minority group in Southeast Asia. He was a man who came to the United States and became a policeman since he had cooperated with the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Shortly after this incident, shops and stores owned by Hmong people were burned down by protesters.
I didn't know the above story until I read an Indonesian newspaper. I wonder if it would have been reported in the Japanese newspapers.
The current protest movement against black discrimination in the USA has another inherent sense of racism in it. We need to keep a close eye on the possibilities. The experiences of verbal abuse and discrimination that people of Asian origin have received from American society including black people have also been posted on social media and elsewhere. Some aspects have to be viewed in terms of discrimination against minorities by majorities.
Before the US presidential election, it seems some superficial political statements with an eye toward the white and black vote. We need, of course, to learn and understand the historical struggles and discrimination that black people have experienced so far, but If it results in singling out only black people and turning a blind eye to discrimination against others by black people, then society is divided. It is not going to be resolved.
At the same time, people of Asian descent who say that they have been discriminated against, but they might discriminated against others. We need to ask ourselves so.
People often think they're the only poor victim, but maybe they're also the perpetrator. It's not easy to come up with what might be.
New coronavirus is not only transmitted by others, but also unknowingly by ourselves. It made me found that I might be able to infect others. The sense that we can be both a victim and a perpetrator is gradually becoming more and more accepted as normal now.
Let's be more humble. We protest that we have been discriminated by others, but at the same time we may be discriminating against someone else. That discrimination is not just about race. Educational background, class of origin, lineage, occupation, appearance, etc. The seeds of discrimination are many and varied.
By discriminating against others, we maybe confirm our existence. In retrospect, who knows I had said that in the past. Perhaps the more we lack confidence in ourselves, the more we want to discriminate against others.
And we often obey to those who seem to be superior than us. It is as like as reverse discrimination to ourselves. In Japan, the cops often asks Asian or black people or who looks like that (even Japanese nationals) on the street to check their ID card, but not to white people. This reflects as like as such reverse discrimination because they're white.
In both Japan and Indonesia, it is important to measure how much higher or lower the person you meet for the first time than you. I've come across a number of cases of guessing and responding to them. That's how people always seem to discriminate or reverse discrimination.
Would it be an overstatement to say that a human being is an animal that, even if not explicitly or unconsciously, lives with discriminating others?
We must have time to be humble with self-reflection...
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