Why Ethnicity Still Matters To Me

Index

Is Ethnicity A World Problem Or Not?

In this world not everybody is as equal as anybody. By saying this I admit the world sees the color and the gender of people. This means that there is an ethnicity problem and a gender problem. Sometimes it is self-inflicted, but most of the time it is out of the unknown which scars us. Not being the same color or same gender scars people. My bias is based on stories and sometimes on what happened to me. I generalize those two because I don't want to be a victim of the group I am discriminating or stigmatizing.  The only thing that can take away my bias is good experience with the group I have a bias about.

Books About Ethnicity And Gender

Lots of authors have dedicated books on these two subjects. These books are written from the point of view of the ethnicity or/and the gender of the writer mostly and not the majority white (male) look on life. Although there are some writers who try writing from a different perspective then there own by giving the main character a different ethnicity or/and gender. If I am interested and want to know what people of other ethnicity or gender go through in their life I read books about what happened in their life. I find them powerful and like to read about how people cope with things they can't immediately change in their life.

Why Ethnicity And Gender Still Matters To Me

These books are all the view of the writers, but they are not far from what I experienced being born on a Dutch Caribbean Island and living most of my life in The Netherlands. I am born Dutch, but still on the outside people see a foreigner. Not all the time and times are changing with people traveling a lot. Slowly but surely the world is changing into a more diverse place where all ethnicities will be treated equally. And with gender it is a bit different in The Netherlands I have more chances than on the island of my birth and I see that more and more countries are passing laws to combat these stigmas. A good example is that there is a quota in place for big companies on gender when they are filling high positions in their company.

Discrimination Or Stigma

There are more forms of discrimination, but these two are the ones I worked with and have experience with. On a lot of illness there is stigma, but I don't know if I can compare this with the discrimination on ethnicity and gender. In my opinion or actually experience they all are conquered when I talk to someone. Mostly I let go of my bias and the other person too although sometimes I don't agree if it is really discrimination or stigma.

'Hé, je lijkt niet op een Antilliaan!'

In 2008 I was interviewed about racism for Contrast. I talked about positive racism, which is actually also not okay. Racism comes most of the time due to:

• Lack of education about other people. Not knowing makes people afraid and there reaction harsh

• A bad experience people had experienced with people with a certain appearance or background.

*In the article 'He, je lijkt niet op een Antilliaan!' my lastname is misspelled at the end with an e instead of an a. There is a journalist with the lastname spelled Capelle and that is not me. My last name is spelled Capella.