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What is racism ?
Where does racism occur ?
Racism at work
Racism concernig police checks
What can you do against racism ?
My personal opinion
What is it?
Racism is the belief that people from some races are better than other people becaus of their skin, their ethnic origin or the country where they come from.
Discrimination occurs when someone is treated worse because of his skin or so on. Discrimination results in what someone does, not because of what someone thinks.
There are two words concerning racism which have two be defined:
harassment:
. abusing or threatening (saying something bad) someone
. damaging property
attack:
. any physical violence
These things are called racism if they happend because of the skin the race, the nationality or the religion of someone.
And all these things like violence in any form or damagin property are criminal offences. In Great Britan they are carrying a maximum sentence of six months of imprisonment or a fine of £5000 which means about 7800 Euro.
Where does Racism occur?
I think racism can occur everwhere. But I took two interesting situations which I'd like two diskuss.
Racism at work:
Ethnic minorities are often treated less favourable at work. There are often problems with other employees. They are maybe not accapted by some colleges which leads to a bad athmosphere at work. And that leads to less productivity.
So they concerns often don't like ethnic minorities to work for them. By not giving them a job they avoid these problems but they cause other problems for the society.
Racism concernig police checks:
I found a very interesting stroy in the book concerning racism which I'd like to talk about. The story is about a black man who had studied physiks and no he has got a good job, earns good money and drives expensive cars.
And in the last ten years he was stopped and checked about 60 times by the police. Maybe because the police thinks that a black person can't have a evpensive car without stealing it. Or maybe they consider a black person more likely to be a crminal than a white one.
And I think a police man doesn't think in an other way than anyone else. So I think the prejudice is a big problem because we are never totally objective but we can try to judge abuat a person because of what he does and not because of what he looks like.
And now I'd like to show you that this story is not just happening one time. So I'd like to draw your attention to this chart.
What can you do agains it ?
I think nobody of us will be dicriminated becaus of his race in Austria. But I think it is important to know what we can do against racial attacks or harassment. Because it is possible that someone has got or will get a friend or a girlfriend from another ethnic group. And then it's likely that get in troubles with racism. So what can you do against it?
I think the most important thing is that you take it serious. Let's say thot something of your property is damaged. Then it's the best if you report the attack to the police as soon as possible and it would be good if someone gives evidence for you. If it is so it would be good if you write down the name and address of this person. And if someone is hurt it is nesessary if you go to the doctor immediately also if the person wasn't hurt very much.
And also if someone gets attacked verbvally you should help. Becaus if nobody says something agains racial discrimination then the racist person will think that his behavior is accepted by the society we life in. But if you criticize such things you may make the person think about their words and their actions.
Even if thats not easy because you'll maybe get insulted but if would be very important to stand up againstthe discrimination because then it maybe doesn't happen the next time.
Personal opinion:
I think that racism is one of the biggest problems in our society. And it will even get more problematic because Austria will become more and more multicultural. So we have to search for solutions concerning these problems otherwise there would be more and more crime and violence ageinat other ethnic groups which is not acceptible at all.
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