Star
30 Jun 2008
Life / Polish people and racism. [943]
Wow, I am reading many of these posts for the first time and I just have so many mixed feelings about all of this stuff. I grew up living a double life. At home I lived in a Polish culture, but outside of my house I lived in the American culture. I feel like I have felt many common prejudices that many Poles feel at some point living in America. I also have learned about prejudices that Poles have felt towards people outside of their ethnicity. In the end, it is too difficult for me to be able to label Poles as having particular behaviors, thought, ideas, and mannerisms. The same is true about Americans. I believe that the same can be said for any culture or group of people. Every single person on this planet is prejudice. We will always have our dislikes about certain things, actions and people. If you do not agree then this is your right, but we will always see the world only through our eyes even when we have studied anthropology extensively. We can not help but to be anthropocentric. That is not wrong. But it does hurt me to think that people believe that this would extend into our DNA. That this is something that we are born with. Every person within a culture does follow certain traditions and beliefs, but they are still individuals that have their own beliefs about the world and others. One cannot label an entire culture as racist against someone else. I feel that because of this type of labeling, stereotypes become something more than just a generalization and become something much more tangible which physically hurts people. We all have to be very careful about what we say and how we think about others because it does not take much for words to become something more physical.
Wow, I am reading many of these posts for the first time and I just have so many mixed feelings about all of this stuff. I grew up living a double life. At home I lived in a Polish culture, but outside of my house I lived in the American culture. I feel like I have felt many common prejudices that many Poles feel at some point living in America. I also have learned about prejudices that Poles have felt towards people outside of their ethnicity. In the end, it is too difficult for me to be able to label Poles as having particular behaviors, thought, ideas, and mannerisms. The same is true about Americans. I believe that the same can be said for any culture or group of people. Every single person on this planet is prejudice. We will always have our dislikes about certain things, actions and people. If you do not agree then this is your right, but we will always see the world only through our eyes even when we have studied anthropology extensively. We can not help but to be anthropocentric. That is not wrong. But it does hurt me to think that people believe that this would extend into our DNA. That this is something that we are born with. Every person within a culture does follow certain traditions and beliefs, but they are still individuals that have their own beliefs about the world and others. One cannot label an entire culture as racist against someone else. I feel that because of this type of labeling, stereotypes become something more than just a generalization and become something much more tangible which physically hurts people. We all have to be very careful about what we say and how we think about others because it does not take much for words to become something more physical.