Tonight I am thinking about Tanzanian Albinos and little Chinese children. What do the two have in common you ask? Well, it's all about "lookism". Yes my friends, in our visual obsessed world (sorry Stevie) you better have the look.
In Tanzania, Albinos are being stalked and killed for their body parts by witchdoctors. And in China, a cute little girl was dissed and her voice used for a cuter little girl, (or so they think) because,to the folks in China, she wasn't cute enough. (There is something really fucked up about that culture over there)
Why kill the Albinos? Well, because of how they look, that's why. I guess we could call this an extreme type of discrimination based on looks. No matter how fucked up things get here in A-merry-ca, I really don't think that really dark people stand the risk of getting shot to death because they are dark.....or, wait...okay, I take that back. Well at least they wouldn't get shot to death by witchdoctors.
The shit that happened in China is troubling and sad. Apparently the cute little girl who actually sang the song, "Ode To The Motherland" (That title alone should tell you something), wasn't cute enough, so they had another girl lip sync the song. (See what you started Milli Vanilli?). I always thought there was something really creepy about that society. Which is why--- even though I will be watching my "yawdies" when they hit the track-- I am not feeling these games. Pretending that all is honey roses in one of the most repressive societies on earth just reeks of hypocrisy to me. And let's not forget about their Darfur problem. Maybe this is why I didn't get too mad at the Spanish Basketball team for their little photo stunt. I know, I know, it was racist, and if someone had done that to some black folks, blah blah blah. The field is not worthy. Besides, what they did strikes me more as "lookism" than racism. The Spanish basketball team have no control or power over the Chinese; so a dumb case of "lookism" maybe; but not racism. But field, you are such a hypocrite, weren't you all over Don Imus because of what he said about the Rutgers women? Wasn't that just a case of "lookism"? What kind of power did he have over their lives? That's a fair point. But some things can't be explained. Maybe I felt that with all his power and influence, Imus had the potential to turn average A-merry-cans into witchdoctors. Or average police officer into wrong look exterminators.
But in the end; "lookism" only becomes a problem when it leads to racism or real discrimination down the line. See the Jews in Hitler's Germany; black folks in Reagan's A-merry-ca; or the poor Albinos in Tanzania.
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