Look At That White Guy!

So today, Mr. Corey Brown posted a blog entry in which he pointed out that people tend to state the colour/race of non-white people when they're referring to them, f'r'instance, "did you see what that asian guy did?" or "look at that black guy over there", whereas if it's a white person, people usually just say "look at that guy over there."

I noticed myself saying that sort of thing years ago, and made a conscious decision to stop referring to race unless it was necessary for whatever I was talking about. I still slip sometimes, but I try.

I've also tried to cut my use of the word "hate" down drastically. Back in college, my friend Mike (I'm not going to label him by race or anything, but he was president of the Asian-American Alliance) stopped me one day and said "you say 'hate' too much." It really stunned me, and I realized that saying "I hate this food" or "I hate that band" or whatever was filling me with negativity. Being around negative things, negative statements, negative people, will corrupt you. Now I only say "hate" when I truly mean it, and that's almost never.

There are bad things going on all around us, we all have things in our lives that bug us and make us want to gripe about it. And griping about things a little can help; we can get our frustrations out and elicit sympathy from friends. But when the things that bug us become obsessions and grow bigger than they should, and when the griping becomes an all-too-frequent occurrence, it ceases to be helpful and instead begins to corrupt us.

Mike Soohoo was right; when I said "hate" a lot, I tended to be a more hateful person. When I focus on more positive things, I can leave the hate behind and be a better person.

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."

- Fredrich Wilhelm Nietzsche