Fighting Racism is Not Nearly Enough!

Those who get knitted knickers from racism are only on the threshold of all the dreadful discriminations that people indulge in all the time. There are plenty of other evil ‘isms’ to be eradicated, all based on the same terrible inclination to identify with particular groups … even if their scabs are not picked at to keep them raw as regularly as the racism ones are.

What about feminism?

(Oops, bad example. For that one, the ‘feminists’ are trying to counter any form of discrimination based on their being feminine. Feminists aren’t the ones who are saying nasty things about females or putting them down; the ones anti-feminist are. Oh, blast!)

All right. Moving on. What about religion-ism. How dare anyone express doubts about other religions, or make any derogatory remarks about them? Identifying Christians, Muslims or Jews as being barbarians for carrying out inhumane slaughter rituals is not on. They need to be referred to in more general terms, perhaps, like ‘stone-age-minded individuals’? Thus, the mention of the actual religions involved is avoided. Factually inaccurate, but full marks for PC.

Then, there are all the evils of sport-ism.  Here, the guilty parties will contend that a particular sport is superior to others. Horrors! (One should never even utter the sorts of jokes that compare cricket to watching grass grow, or that football — soccer — is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans while rugby football is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen. These might be seen as offensive.)

 

Or, in another form, sport-ism would hold that a particular fancied sportsperson or team is the greatest. Such dreadful practices make other sport sorts, people or teams feel bad. Disgraceful! Supporting your county’s team in a sport is, after all, no different to contending that the racial group you belong to is superior, and then deeply resenting anyone who maintains it is not.

Carried to excess, any support of a cause is shoving-ism … er, chauvinism. Contrary to what you may think, this term is not confined to boars but is actually “an irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of one’s own group or people”. Thus, it is possible to add an equally tautological female chauvinistic sow to the male chauvinist pig.

The President of South Africa is leading a great fight against intellectualism. Any dusky person who shows evidence of having a brain and using it is labelled a ‘Smart Black’ and treated with derision.

In fact, all these ‘-isms’ lead to a majorly evil ‘-ism’. Antagonism. Unfortunately, though, with human nature being what it is, this is one ‘ism’ people would find a way to perpetuate even if all the other ‘isms’ were done away with.

South Africa maintains all should be colour blind.
But then, just how come is it that they do give mind
To shades of all that play within a sporting team,
Or those that find employment in a business scheme,
And when these are too pale they all let out a scream;
It is a total bind!

© September 2017 Colonialist