Racism is a difficult subject to tackle; the most commonly accepted view on racism comes down to the colour of skin or the persons country of origin but, much like many things in life, there is a broad scale of racism that creeps into everyday life.
I recently came across something that’s very low on the scale of racism or bigotry that made me realise a lot of people aren’t aware of how their views might actually offend others.
Kelly Osbourne (yes I follow Kelly, ok? She’s bad-ass and I love her) posted a photo of herself on Instagram working out. Her comment was about how she had worn work out pants that were too small and announced that it was a lesson learnt.
Stay with me, this is where it kicked off… before people could slay her for using learnt instead of learned she informed her followers that in the UK we say ‘learnt’ and not ‘learned’.
I scrolled through the comment, perhaps looking for a fight, and noticed some people had commented on how the US used stupid spelling and they never spell or pronounce anything right because, according to them, the UK version is the correct version. Basically disregarding American English as a language.
This, to me, is a form of casual racism.
Disregarding the way Americans spell and pronounce words is disregarding a culture and is very ‘England Rules the World’. I hate this mentality with a passion and, since studying the English language and grammar at Uni, this is a topic I greatly enjoy talking to people about.
Possibly a mistake on my part because I made my own comment to suggest this form of thinking is racist.
Now my phone is peppered with some girl on Instagram thinking I specifically called her racist because of her opinion on spelling.
To say I’m irked is an understatement. It’s like people don’t realise that opinions, whilst valid and free, can be very much wrong on a general scale. Yes your opinion is your own and your view on the world, however, you can be wrong at the same time.
Maybe I’m just overly sensitive to this because I’ve read so much about it but I can’t help but wonder how many people may think that they are right to think badly about people and cultures because they’ve been told so many times that ‘everyone’s entitled to their own opinion’.
In MY opinion it’s a downward spiral into much more hateful thinking.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments, perhaps you think I’m wrong?
Sam
Pretty Thoughtful Blog 