Racism is a touchy issue

People always seem to tip-toe around the subject of race, and with good reason. Racism has been the root of many historical problems. Generally, the term has come to describe white peoples' discrimination against people of color. White people are always the racists, the haters, the ones to blame. Although this may have some historical validity, this definition of racism has become obsolete in today's world. Racism is not only for Caucasians. Why is it that African-Americans and Hispanics can say almost anything discriminatory against white people and everybody looks the other way, but white people are immediately attacked if they are even suspected of hinting at racism? Of course, I definitely do not mean to say that people of color talk down about whites, but it happens, just as there are white racists.

Today, I read this article in Yahoo! News. It brings up a valid point on this subject: white players in basketball are often regarded as highly inferior to black players. People say that basketball is a black sport, and African-Americans are far more athletic than whites. So that's the argument they're using to defend their stereotypes? That's just as ridiculous as saying that the majority of our government is composed of white men because they're smarter and more respected than black politicians.

I believe that people of different ethnicities have grown an overly-defensive attitude toward suspected racism because of the abuse their race has sustained over the years. That time, however, has past. Colored people are fully accepted in our society, and all (or most) people are sensitive to racism. So why do some people still feel the need to attack whites? We cannot be responsible for the actions of our ancestors. To me, it seems that people of different races feel they have a free card to be discriminatory towards white people because most of us are too wary of the "racism" issue to confront them about it.

Yes, it annoys me when other schools laugh at our basketball team because all the players are white, or when a white kid wants to join the soccer team and is looked upon as an inferior player, or when I hear people refer to me or my friends as "crackers" and we have no room to retaliate. I think the whole race issue is blown way out of proportions, and we all need to forget about it and move on with our lives. Everybody loses with racism.

Emily Prevost
WHS
Wickenburg, Ariz.