Lets get this out of the way: most of us base our

decisions on discriminations based on certain

assumptions based on partial data. Its how we
choose a cable company, a car, and even a mate. Its
very efficient: it means you dont have to have every
piece of information about everything, just enough.
However, troubles arise when we make incorrect
assumptions due to not enough information, or wrong
information altogether. For example: I am Korean,
and I am very good at mathematics. However, these
two factoids are not as related as a lot of people have
been led to believe. Mathematical aptitude is not part
of my ethnicity case in point: my equally Korean sister nearly failed mathematics.
So why do I bring this up? Well, believe it or not, recent discrimination cases (and
the ensuing riots) in Baltimore, New York, and Ferguson are all related to this line of
flawed thinking. This has in turn caused widespread concern being voiced at a
United Nations hearing over excessive use of force by lawenforcement officials against minorities in the United
States. (Moulson, 2015)
To understand the root cause of this, we need to engage in
some reverse engineering. Take the hashtag
#BlackLivesMatter, for example. Where does it come from?
The belief that African American lives are considered to not
matter, as least not as much as others. Where does that
come from? Years of discrimination against African
Americans and the general black stereotype. Where does
that come from? Well, there are many causes, most of them stemming from slavery
in the 18th and 19th century. Todays society is still heavily affected by a 200 year old
concept. We need to change that.
In order to make the necessary changes, we need to change one of the basic
concepts about how we view other people: it can be summed up in our use of the
term you. Such an innocent little word, but it has enormous power. When I use the
term you, I am separating me from you. I am acknowledging a fundamental
difference between you and I that has prevented the use of we or us. Every case
of discrimination is based on how I define you, and that can have a significant
impact. For example, racism arises when I use ethnicity to define you, and since
you are a different ethnicity than I, there is no we. Had I chosen to not define
you by ethnicity, it would just be we and us. The use of racial slurs would not be
a problem if we all agreed not to use it, instead of I can use it and you cant. In
2007, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. faced significant backlash after stating "The
way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis
of race." (2007) Its true. One cannot become a violinist by talking about violins, and
racism cannot be eliminated by talking about it either. However, I believe the
backlash occurred because he failed to mention that this is a we problem, not
you and I problem. Without clarifying himself as part of we, it was only too easy

for people to tag him with White Privilege which is a you

concept.

So what do we do? In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson

famously stated You do not take a person who, for years,
has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up
to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to
compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you
have been completely fair. (1965) The current focus should be on creating a we
based on the simple fact that we are all human. This we is not created by giving
everyone the same car or cable company. Its only when every one of I breaks out
of discriminatory thinking against ourselves and recognize that everyone is indeed
born with equal moral worth that we finally start seeing the fundamental us.

References
Moulson, Geir.(2015) US DEFENDS RECORD BEFORE TOP UN HUMAN RIGHTS BODY.
Retrieved from
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UNITED_NATIONS_US_RIGHTS
Johnson, Lyndon B.(1965) To Fulfill These Rights. Retrieved from
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/650604.asp
Barnes, Robert.(2007) Divided Court Limits Use of Race by School Districts.
Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062800896.html