American History X

I just finished watching American History X and am once again struck by the message this powerful movie portrays. Summed up in the final liturgy of the newly reformed little brother of the main character of the movie is the phrase "Hatred is baggage and life is to short to be pissed off all the time" is such a truth in my life. My whole life I have been surrounded by angry people with baggage dragging them down and causing them untold stress and damage to themselves and the relationships that they have with the people around them. I try to live my life as positive as possible and do my best to raise my children to be as aware of the damage both to themselves and collaterally that a racist and angry ideology presents.

I find it to be quite sad how even in today's world, attitudes and beliefs such as the neo-Nazism that so pollutes the family at the center of the movie, abound today in so many of the indiscriminate comments and seemingly benign actions of so many around me. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people in and around my life who will swear up and down that they are not racist or prejudice and yet can still off-handedly make snide remarks about a person's character that are fully based on the race into which they were born. What I can not understand is how a comment such as X race cannot drive, or W race are less intelligent than Y, or Z race are all racist people who hate the G race people are not seen as nothing but blatantly racist in nature by the people uttering them. Being a person who becomes very quickly offended and uncomfortable by such remarks I just do not get it.

Even in my daughters very multicultural school, where respect for self and others is an integral part of the curriculum above and beyond what any school I have seen before, there is a nasty undercurrent of racism that is starting to rear its ugly head. One may point fingers in this case at the children uttering the comments but the reality is that they heard these things outside of the school environment first. How sad that a parent would see themselves as having done no wrong in polluting their innocent child's developing mind, setting them up for a future of anger, distrust and potential hatred of what they do not understand. My hope for my child here is that she recognizes the pain that even the most innocuous of comments makes and refuses to be lead into believing that this type of behaviour is acceptable in any way. My greatest hope is that she will flourish into the type of young woman of whom I can be proud, one who stands up for her beliefs and will not accept such behaviour as common place. If she can be the type of person who is willing to say not me, and defend a friend who is subject to this type of subtle discrimination than I can stand up and say I have done a good job raising her. If tolerance and acceptance is not a crucial part of a child's developing identity, then their future can only be bleak at best. Success in the eyes of the world is meaningless if it comes at the cost of carrying the baggage of hatred with you throughout life.

In Canada we are blessed to have a wide variety of cultures and people. It is this variety of which the foundation of Canada is based at it is a thing that should be celebrated and not shunned. It would be a wonderful place to call home indeed if everyone could accept each and every one of us as a part of the whole and stop trying to fight for what they believe they are entitled to. We are all entitled after all to the same things, peace, happiness, acceptance and a chance to live a good life. Discrimination, racism and intolerance cannot allow for these to be accessible.