Final Reflection

Though I learned an impressive amount in global this year a concept that really stood out to me was race relations. The concept of race just being a tool of power was really interesting to me. Before this year I never looked at race as a tool of power, I am not sure exactly what I thought but once it was mentioned in class it became clear. Throughout history history race and even religion have been used against certain peoples to oppress them. Great examples of oppression due to a view of difference race would be slavery, the holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and segregation in sports. Those were all examples of oppressed races being portrayed as lower by the ruling race. Race was used against all of these people to hurt and demolish their sense of place in the world. The jews were brutally killed, tutsis were massacred due to their race, black slaves were worked till they died, and black players were kept from participating in white leagues. The last of those examples ended up being a turning point in American history where blacks started to become more accepted generally and radical whites saw their power over them slipping away. All of the examples are brutal and ugly but power is behind all of them. Even controversial topics today like gay marriage might be because of a power struggle. Christians might want to keep the power of holding marriage sacred to only a man and a woman. Power through race though has been used to abuse and kill off too many people, I think we are progressing to a better future away from that concept but we are not all the way there yet.