Race Equality

Over the weekend, everyone in the world is celebrating the 5-4 ruling for marriage equality by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. It was a big win, because even though several countries around the world has recognised gay rights way ahead of SCOTUS, no other countries have claimed to be a free country more than the Uncle Sam himself. This weekend, basically, #lovewins.

Even though marriage equality is still pretty much a long shot in my home country, I have to say that I do support gay rights. I think that people shouldn't have to be forbidden from marrying people that they love, and that the law doesn't have to go hand-in-hand with anyone's religious values. The truth is, even though I am quiet religious, I believe that people need to shove their religious values up their own butts and keep it to themselves.

However, there are many other equality issues that were overlooked in this very weekend. Gender equality. Equalities that have something to do with disabilities. With race. The truth is, perhaps, like almost half of America as mirrored by the number of judges voting "No" to marriage equality, the world is still not ready for equality. It might even be possible that we are not created equal. Some are better than the other. After all, we did come from a majority of patriarchal cultures.

But let's talk about race, for instance

Seeing all of these equality issues buzzing before me, I can't help but reflect on who I really am and the boxes that I will be put into should all of these issues remain a utopia. I am a pure blood Malay race who still live in the land that belonged to my ancestors. In fact, my race inhabits most of the areas in the country and are the majority every where you go in the archipelago. Like many other Malayans, I have tawny skin and black hair and average height. I'm Muslim, and I consider myself to be moderately religious with libertarian preferences. Does that speak anything about me? Well, in this wild, wild world, of course it does.

I work in an environment where, strangely enough, I was the minority. Things are different outside of this office though, sure, but right here, I'm the minority. I have found myself in numerous meetings where I was the only one without light, yellow skin and small eyes and an Eastern Asian-style last names. I have dined in a table where everyone was happy to order pork while I have to convince myself that it's okay to eat as long as I only have the salad. My bosses are all of the same race. They were all male, and that's only acceptable because it's man's man's world (still). I don't think that it really necessarily means that they are smarter or work harder than the rest who did not fulfill that criteria, but, who am I to say? I'm not the boss. Yet.

My country did not have a beautiful history about racial equality. There had always been some kind of discrimination. It's probably something that was rooted from the fact that we were not exposed to much diversity from early on, that even when the laws that work in different ways for certain groups of people have been cleared, we are still living in fear of other races, and perhaps even worse, ethnicity. The fact that racial equality is an even more sensitive issue than marriage equality is a jarring truth, and it seems that the law wants people to do it not in writing. It's like saying, Well, the truth is, people were born racists. I guess there's a truth in there, yes. But there's a difference in being a racist and not giving people the opportunity in spite of their color. I guess I don't mind the former, but I actually mind the latter. The former is being conservative, while the latter is being a plain jerk.

The truth of the matter is, people are all the same in the world. With only very small number of deviation, we're all made from the same flesh and bones. Our blood is red, and we were built from the same tissues. Our biological systems work in the same manners. We are all 72% water. We bleed. We were all born from someone. Discrimination over someone's race is something that I believe is a form of injustice. It is not a First World Problem. It is a World Problem. And I am ashamed that, two years ago, when I had the chance to speak in front of hundreds of students about indigenous rights, I thought it was a problem that only countries with racial issues would understand, but it's not. I don't think I have ever been more unwise than I was in that very forum.

Am I writing this post to be furious about the world that we live in? Or am I writing this just to understand my situation better? I'm not sure which one is my true intention, but earlier, I thought that all of racial discrimination is a historical injustice that we still suffer because God knows why. I know that there's not a lot that we can do, because, if being a racist is a God-given basic instinct that everyone was born with, what can we do? However, I believe that by knowing that everyone was created equally, and how colors are skin deep and physical features are only as deep as the eyes can see, we can help to make the world a more comfortable place. A place that we can be proud to call home and introduce to our offspring. A place where we're not constantly dreaming of another place that can accommodate our wishes and aspirations.