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[mona-schreibt]

I received a great message via whatsapp which made my heart feel so warm, I wanted to share it with you:

I am thankful for my pants that are a bit too tight, because that means I have enough to eat. I am thankful for the mess after a party, because that means I was sorrounded by beloved friends. I am thankful for the lawn that needs to be mowed and the windows that need to be cleaned, because that means I have a home. I am thankful for the expressed complaints about the government, because that means we live in a free country and have the freedom of opinion. I am thankful for the last spot at the outmost end of the parking space, because that meens I can afford a car. I am thankful for the person in the church sitting behind me and singing off-key, because that means I can hear well. I am thankful for the laundry and the heap of ironing, because that means I have enough clothes. I am thankful for beeing tired and for the hurting muscles, because that means I can move and am able to work hardly. I am thankful for the alarm in the morning, because that means I am given a new day!

Sometimes it's worth changing the perspective!

[mona-schreibt]

Last week I visited a friend from university and her family. We had a really great evening and a kind of thrilling conversation and I want to share the most important theses.

My friend and her husband fled from Syria in 2016. She was pregnant and they had a really tough start. They said it never were the people who made them feel beeing at the wrong place. They were never treated bad in a way that made them feel foreigners. But what made it really difficult was the bureaucracy. Just for an example: To get the status as refugees and thus the visas, they had to give 20,000€ for 2 persons as a kind of fixed term deposits. It still was their money but they were only allowed to take 1.200€ per month as a kind of guarantee that they would stay and not only receive social benefits. Their costs: flat 400€ per month, ticket for bus and train because she couldn't walk long distances, about 60€ per month, language school 300€ per month for both together, health insurance 300€ per month. Which makes it about 140€ per month left for food.

It was hard but they are happy now. He works in a hospital as a doctor, she works as a civil engineer. They bought a really nice, big house last year. They are happy living here and raising their son in a country without war.

Of course we talked a lot about the topic racism. And there is one sentence he said, I will never forget. He said "In Syria we, as catholics, always were a minority, but that was never a problem, friends, neighbours, colleagues, everyone respected your religion/confession and how you want to live it. Now we live in an originally christian country but everybody looks at me as if I was sick or crazy, when I say that I am catholic." - I can confirm this feeling. In our country nobody cares when you say you are a Atheist, Muslim, Jew, Mongol or whatever religion, but most people judge you when you say I believe in God or I am catholic/protestant.

We agreed on this thesis: Racism is not about what others say to you, it's about what you feel like when hearing it.

He had one experience when starting to work in a hospital. He had orders about how to treat one child, but during the night the health status of that child changed rapidly. He was the responsible doctor so he changed the medication and the child was better. The next morning he was asked "can't you cope with a female chief giving you orders?" He said she judged him from prejudices.

His wife said, you can't know if this woman wouldn't have said the same to other men and she was maybe just worried because she is his chief and therefor responsible for his action. But what counts is what you feel about it, no matter what the other one wanted to say.

[mona-schreibt]

Lately I was listening to the audio book "Percy Jackson" by Rick Riordan. I love this book series and have read and listened to it so many times. It reminded me that Disney+ plans a TV series based on these novels and I wanted to find out when it will be published. The first thing google shows me when searching for "Percy Jackson TV series" are photos of the actors who will play the main characters. I must admit I stumbled when seeing that Leah Jeffries, a poc girl, will play Annabeth Chase, who was (in the books) described as a blonde girl. I told myself "dont be a racist, she will do well" and continued looking for the date of publication. But what I found on wikipedia was a comment that many fans were apparently discontent with the cast of Leah. And then I found this link to a comment by Rick Riordan, the author:

Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase | Rick Riordan

In my opinion, he is absolutely right, what is most important is the character and not the physical appearance. But while reading this comment, another thought came to my mind: This is a fictional story and the skin colour makes no difference to the story.

Several years ago there was a huge discussion that the "Zwarte Piet", a historical character in the Dutch culture, should be forbidden. I agree that it is no longer uptodate that a blackfaced man is the fear spreading henchman and as far as I know they agreed on the solution that the "Zwarte Piet" is now black because of soot. But dont forget that this was a historic character. The story, that they tell, only makes sense when the children are scared because of an aspect in the physical appearence. Fear mostly arises out of ingnorance. Many years ago, before globalisation had started, a huge majority of the people in central europe had never seen or heard about poc. And there was no TV showing them pictures or films or telling them about other cultures. Imagine you just don't know that there are people somewhere on the world who have a different skin colour. And then you see a person looking so different to you. Wouldn't you be scared? This shall not be an excuse that this image, blackfaced man = evil, is still used, just an explanation how it had come to this.

Another thought to it: Concerning the discussion about blackfacing. In the area where I live you cannot see many (sorry for the word but I'm just in miss of a better one) black people. You can see many poc with their roots in Asia, Southern Europe, the Mideast. Still, in the theatre blackfacing is - I don't know if forbidden but at least frowned upon. But who has a solution when there simply is no actor whose physical appearance fits to the role? Of course you can say, like Rick Riordan, I don't care about the appearance, the character is more important. But what about a famous character as e.g. Martin Luther King? His story would be completely different if it was played by a white man. I don't know if in my city (around 500k people) there is at least one black person who works as an actor. I just dont know. I, personally, would not bother, if a poc would "whiteface" if he/she fits best to the character and if it was essential for the role...

[mona-schreibt]

I have a distant acquaintance. We never had close contact because she doesn't live nearby. Still I'm often reading her status posts. And therefore I started to ponder.

Her parents come from Sri Lanka and you can notice this by her skin colour. I never really thought about it, it just wasn't important to me, (just now it is important to understand my thoughts). She is a nice woman, the rare times we met, we always got on well. She is sympathetic, nice, helpful, intelligent...

About a year ago she startet posting comments, articles and book covers concerning racial discrimination. For me it was really interesting seeing this topic from her point of view and I even started listening to an audio book from her recommendations. But while listening to it, my mind changed. The i-narrator presented several situations in such an extreme way that I could no longer feel sorry, unterstanding or maybe even pity, I became angry. Angry not about the white people's wrong behaviour but about the people of colour, in this case represented by a young woman giving any fault to the whites. Of course she also said a lot of things that are true and that cannot be accepted. But if it's hard for her to draw a line between what is discrimination and what is just ignorance or maybe unfamiliarity, not at all meant to be discriminating, she is no way better than a racist.

I don't see myself as a racist. I never judged anybody by his skin colour, accent or culture. I lived with a fellow student who grew up in turkey, two of my best friends have their roots in Poland and Vietnam, one of my favourite colleagues comes from Ivory Coast. To me there is no difference between them and other friends. But I have one fixed opinion: If you live in a country and want to stay in this country, you must respect and tolerate our culture. This applies to everyone , no matter where he/she, his/her parents or grandparents come from.

Why is it okay that we are called "white", but you must not name others "black" or "yellow"? Their skin is not really black or yellow, okay, but my skin is not really white either. On Christmas Eve I went to church with my family and I noticed a family with two little children. Later I was told by a friend who knows them personally, that they are muslims. At first I thought it was nice that they are interested in our religion but I changed my mind very fast. The adults did not take off their caps, the children ran around the whole church, the parents cried after them but did not bother to catch them, even after the holy mass had started, they continued walking around. This was really disturbing. What would they say, if I came to visit their mosque, refused to take off my shoes and disturb them?

What I was getting at with all of this, this acquaintance I talked about at the beginning made me feel discriminated for being white. I don't know what she is going through every day and maybe it would help to a bit of understanding if we would sit together and talk. But only seeing these posts of hers makes me feel she hates all whites and blames anyone of us for everything. And then after all, my final question: If she should really feel this way, that every white person is to be blamed, why does she stay here in central europe?

I know that every person is different, in every nation, every religion, every gender there are always "good" people as well as "bad" people however you want do define these phrases. Sure there are white people who discriminate people of colour, but in my opinion it's far from the majority. And blaming the whites and making them feel discriminated as well is no solution.