Where Did Our Humanity Go?!

The world is changing. In a short time, so many important events have happened that it sometimes seems we don’t know which problem to turn to and focus on first. Covid-19, racism, nationalism, climate change… Some would say it’s too much for the ordinary person to think about and act on all at once.

And then I go on social media, where the biggest worry right now is, believe it or not, nothing more and nothing less than the weather. Posts and stories about the cheeky rain ruining our plans, because “they’ve lost their minds, what kind of weather is this”. Apart from that, the other existential problem is “are we going to the seaside this year”.

My dears, if these two problems are the most important ones right now and the only thing that troubles you, then hats off to you.

How about we change the rhetoric a little and, at least for a moment, try to think about others, not only about ourselves? Try it, it’s not as hard as it seems.

I don’t care about the sea, or whether I’ll get my limbs wet in salt water or fresh. I couldn’t care less whether it’s raining outside, because I won’t be drinking coffee in cafés even if the sun is the loveliest in the world. Because, believe it or not, there are far more important things than splashing about and drinking coffee.

Racism Is Not Someone Else’s Problem

For a large part of the world, those things are, for example, human lives, imagine that. Because we live in a time when bare human lives are threatened from two sides: from one that people have no direct influence on, the virus sweeping the planet, and from one that people themselves, and white people at that, caused and keep causing: racism.

I’m not an expert on viruses, so I won’t write about that at length here. Unfortunately, I can’t directly influence its disappearance per se, other than by staying at home and wearing a mask when I do have to go out. But what I can very much influence is the disappearance of racism.

I weighed for a long time whether it even made sense to write about this topic. Not because I think it isn’t important, quite the opposite, I think that, apart from climate change, our generation has not faced a bigger or more important problem. I hesitated precisely because of the colour of my skin.

Am I, as someone born in white Europe, in any way entitled to talk about racism?

I will certainly never be able to understand what it is like for people who face contempt and harassment every day only because of the colour of their skin.

But, first and foremost as a human being, I have the right to be hurt by injustice.

I have the right to say that what is happening is not ok at all.

I have the right to worry about the kind of world we live in and what I can do to contribute, even a little, to changing it for the better.

Because the fact that I am white, that I was born in the Balkans and live in Germany, does not mean this topic doesn’t concern me. My human responsibility doesn’t allow me to wave my hand and say “oh, that happens somewhere over there”.

None of us can choose when we will be born, or where on this planet, let alone what colour our skin will be.

No, I have never lived in a ghetto and I can’t even imagine what that is like. But I live in a country I wasn’t born in, and every day I speak a language that isn’t my mother tongue.

I don’t think discrimination in Germany is as widespread as it is in America, but how would I even know what the real situation is when the colour of my skin meets the basic requirement for privilege?

What I do know is that Germany is a multicultural country. Everyone lives here, from all over the world, of all religions and skin colours. So diversity is part of my everyday life, which means the problem of racism and discrimination concerns me.

It matters to me whether my child will play with all the children at kindergarten, based on what kind of person someone is, whether they share her interests or her toys, and not on what that someone looks like.

It matters to me, very much!

What I Can Actually Do

Maybe I can’t go to the ghettos in America and protest in the streets alongside people who are discriminated against. But what I can do is use my virtual and my real voice to talk about this, because it troubles me.

I can teach my daughter that we are all human beings first, regardless of any innate trait we didn’t choose ourselves.

What I can also do is try to understand why I, too, am part of the problem. What I may have done to make people’s everyday lives harder. Because we all naturally assume that we have never discriminated against anyone. But what if we have, unintentionally and unconsciously?

And what if we do it intentionally and consciously and don’t want to change it? Then, my dears, we are in even bigger trouble!

Have We Really Progressed as a Species?

You would think that as a species we have progressed enough to no longer have to worry about racial, national or even gender differences, discrimination and superiority.

And I wonder whether the fact that we have advanced technology is in itself enough for us as a species to call ourselves superior or more advanced than our ancestors. I’m afraid it isn’t.

Because if in the 21st century there is still fear of others and of those who are different, just because of the pigment of their skin, I’m afraid we can’t even think about progress, let alone talk about it.

The problem isn’t “only” the problems of Black people in America and across Europe, the problem is also open nationalism dressed up as “sovereignism”, which is clearly flourishing everywhere, and it shouldn’t be. Calling things by a new name doesn’t mean they are something different or less dangerous.

Enough Discrimination, Let’s Bring Humanity Back

I can’t sit back with my arms folded and watch racism and nationalism awaken under the excuse “well, it’s not the 1920s, there are no more Nazis and racists”. Oh yes, there are, and more and more of them, whatever they call themselves today.

Have we learned nothing? Is it possible that my generation holds the same views as young people did in those very 1920s and 1930s?

That hurts me.

I cannot accept it!

I don’t want to be part of it!

My child will not be part of it, and I will do everything in my power to make sure she never, ever hates anyone because they are darker than her, because they come from another country, speak another language or pray in a different way. Never!

Does a text like this even belong on my blog? Absolutely! Because only if we all talk about the problem can we raise awareness, above all of how serious the situation is.

Only together, but as individuals, can we change something.

And by this I don’t mean that we can all take to the streets (although we should), but that we start with ourselves. Educate ourselves. Understand the problem first of all. And then root it out, above all within ourselves.

So that we never again shrink back from migrants, Roma, Black people, Muslims, Jews, women, people of a different sexual orientation… unfortunately the list is much longer, but the point is the same.

Enough discrimination on any grounds!

Let’s bring humanity back!

#blacklivesmatter

S-Mama