attentive.

This one felt a little confrontational throughout its drafting, but I think I finally settled on a more subtly frustrated draft. This essay has undergone one round of drafting and will probably endure one more before its printing. I hope you like it!

DISCUSS SOME ISSUE OF PERSONAL, LOCAL, NATIONAL, OR INTERNATIONAL CONCERN AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO YOU.

If I were hypothetically asked to name a concern that applied personally, locally, nationally, and internationally, I would jump at the chance to scream RACIAL TOLERANCE. And since this question isn’t so hypothetical anymore, I must pay my dues and proclaim RACIAL TOLERANCE as loud as I can in writing.

As person of mixed ethnicities, I struggle to accept the use of the term “race” when specifying an ethnic origin. According to my trusty sidekick, Webster, race is defined as “a competition; an urgent need; an onward movement”. I had to read further to find the definition I was looking for, the one I was expecting: “a group of persons related by common descent or heredity”. If I was to believe that we all evolved from a primordial speck, and therefore shared a common ancestor, would that extinguish the word “race” from my cache of descriptors? If I was to believe that we all descended from Adam and Eve, and therefore genealogically overlapped, would that be enough to justify the removal of “race” from my mind?

My least favourite definition of the word “tolerance” is “the act or capacity of enduring”. If I were to say that I was “tolerating your race”, then I would be back-handedly saying that I’m “enduring your race”, as though your race were a bad odour or an unpleasant sight. I firmly believe the word “tolerance” should be redefined to mean “accepting, though not always understanding, something that is different from you”. In my perfect world, the last thing we will notise will be the colour of skin. We will accept our differences, revoke our claims of superiority, and abandon our mistaken perceptions.

If we define ourselves as the human RACE, and not as the human SPECIES, then have we not been abusing the word “race” for far too long? It is my personal belief that we are all one race. We are all humans. We are of different cultures, different bloodlines, and different customs, but we share this planet. We share the same bodily structures and the same anatomical functions. We have the same hinges, the same networks, and the same chemicals. All in different proportions, but that doesn't change our fundamental structure: that of a homo sapien. We've gone to war over ethnic differences, but how grand are the losses when placed alongside the victories! Are you not built like me? Are we not the same? If we get cut, we both bleed. If we are shoved, we both bruise. But I believe that if we fall, we will both get up. If our leaders and our citizens could learn to abandon their predispositions, their assumptions and inclinations, perhaps our world would be a more beautiful, accepting place.

My generation’s history has been too badly scarred by racism to be healed. I feel I have no choice but to press forward, to change the standards by which my ancestors lived. I have the power and the ability to change the worldscape. I am the next generation. I will inherit the problems of my parents and will be charged with the responsibility of changing the flaws in the system. My hope is that by the time I lay down to die, my peers will have successfully realised and reached their fullest potential as individuals, as communities, as countries, and as a species.