Community and race are directly related to each other. Since community is a large society composed of a number of people with different backgrounds, people are categorized into several groups according to their ethnicity. Moreover, each of the particular ethnic groups is considered a subculture group. Although the subculture groups follow the same laws and rules of the community, they share a distinctive set of cultural beliefs and behaviors that differ in some significant way from the larger society. (Kendall 1998:61) The unlike beliefs can lead to conflicts and arguments between different ace groups.
Likewise, racism is also found in a community when a particular group discriminates or abuses members of another race. Therefore, local government or some community associations are responsible for providing anti-racism knowledge to every member in the community and encourage them to build up a friendly neighborhood in order to keep the society stable. Kabeer in “The Structure of Revealed Preference” describes how racism destroys a sense of community, and Bangladeshi group suffer a lot from this issue. Also, Englund in “An Indian Remembers” describes native students that are victims of acism by the priest and the nuns at school.
In contrast, Counts and Counts in “Theyre Family Now” mention that the RVers community is full of harmony without discriminating other members race, educational level, age, etc. , and they have a friendly neighborhood. In Kabeers article “The Structure of Revealed Preference”; the Bangladeshi people immigrate to United Kingdom and automatically become members of the local community. The Bangladeshis follow the same laws and rules as other local residents, British whites, but carrying different culture beliefs. Therefore, the Bangladeshi people are considered a subculture roup of the white community.
For example, the Bangladeshi culture has a very unique way of thinking about women entering into the work force. They believe that “women are primarily, often solely, responsible for child care and housework and hence the assignment of women to home-based forms of income earning. ” (Kabeer 1995: 40) Moreover, women “is shameful to work with men. ” (Kabeer 1995: 35) Therefore, one can hardly see a Bangladeshis woman working outside of their home in the factory. Further, Bangladeshis men are having a hard time finding jobs from the market; they can never find a job without references or ntroductions by other friends and relatives.
Bangladeshi people often suffer from racism and ignorance from the local white society. Sometimes the white people group even violently attacks them which makes the Bangladeshi people afraid of going out after nine oclock at night, because “most attacks happen late at night. ” (Kabeer 1995:43) Therefore, Bangladeshi people are concentrated in settlements in the East End of London, because most of the Bangladeshi people “chose to live in council housing in safe neighborhoods rather than owner-occupied housing elsewhere, because of fear of racial arassment in white owner-occupied areas.
The Bangladeshi people group themselves into a specific area in order to avoid being victims hurt by other white people. Therefore, the whites racism destroys the Bangladeshi peoples sense of community. In addition, in the Englunds article “An Indian Remembers”, Mary and all other native students are forced to attend the Catholic boarding school in order to receive education. All students have to follow the strict rules set by the school board, and all these regulations that Mary has to follow contrast with the free-style living she has used to ignite a lot of sparks.
For example, all students have to make the bed every morning very neatly, if they “didnt make the bed right the nun would come along and pull all the sheets and blankets off” (Englund 1995: 434) to make the student make it all over again. Moreover, Mary has experience discrimination by those nuns in that she is punished for no reason, and when she tries to fight back, it gets even worse because they “werent allowed to question” (Euglund 1995: 436) without any permission from the teachers.
Likewise, all students are suffer racism by those rules that they are not allowed to speak their own mother anguage – Indian – at school, only English. However, the principal and the nuns could talk in French in front of all the students. Since most of the time the native students use are English, they talk less and less with their mother tongue and forget their own language which later on will also destroy their culture as well. Further, all students are “not allowed to discuss what goes on in school” (Euglund 1995: 437) when they go home, otherwise they will be punished.
As a result, all the native students are discriminated by those strict rules that they are not equally treated as the nuns and the priests, nd they have no rights and no freedom to do anything they want without a permission from the nuns or priests. On the other hand, those native students do not have any human rights at all. In contrast, Counts and Counts “The power of Imagined Community. ” describes a RVers community that is full of harmony, and everybody is very helpful and friendly in their neighborhood.
The RVers have a strong sense of belonging maintained by and for the local community – RV parks. Most of the retired people including professional, white-collars and blue-collars prefer spending their rest of their life in the recreational vehicle because they njoy the RV lifestyle, and they establish the RV community instantly when they join to live in the RV park. Although all RVers have different social status, educational levels, occupations, race, culture, beliefs, etc. they will never discriminate against each other based on their backgrounds or past histories.
The RV community maintains their friendly neighborhood by welcoming new members, exchanging their personal history, arranging gatherings and sharing foods, values, and culture. Therefore, “the feeling of isolation, apathy, loneliness and the absence of a future are not found” (Counts and Counts 1995: 62) mong the RVers. Some RVers even describe that they are living like a family that they trust people in their area and “everybody watches out for everybody else. (Counts and Counts 1995: 65)
Moreover, the RV community “try to make the area look homey” and that “they want it to look like home and smell like home. ” (Counts and Counts 1995: 65) Furthermore, all “RVers expect to be able to give and receive help from each other in an emergency” (Counts and Counts 1995: 65) that this reciprocity is essential to the success of their strategy of coping with crisis. As a result, the RVers community is full of harmony and friendliness ust like a big family. In conclusion, Kabeer and Euglunds article are examples of racism.
Both characters in the articles are suffering and having a sense of fear in the community. The Bangladeshi people are scared and try to live together with the white people in the same area because they are always discriminated against. Moreover, Mary Euglund and all other students are suffering from inhuman strict rules. Both the Bangladeshi people and Mary and other students are not happy when they are in that community; they enjoy their own way of living and have different culture beliefs from the community. On the ther hand, all RVers are living happily together without any conflicts and arguments.
They will never experience racism and discriminate other members according to peoples educational, occupational, or social background. All RVers will help each other in many ways within the community, such as: looking after others property. Therefore, community and race are closely related to each other that a large society often consist of different ethnic groups of people, and there might be some conflicts and arguments between them. As a result, in order to have a stable society full of harmony, everybody needs to eliminate racism and conflicts.
