Giving 'face' is the Chinese expression for respect and
civility. In everyday society, it is common to 'give face' to people, even
those you don't like or respect – not exactly fawning, but courteous: frosty
but polite, one could say. Face-giving is essential in business relationships,
where a single act of disingenuousness can cost years of relationship-building
effort.
When you break it down, giving face equals not saying what
you really feel.
Recently, in America, a law was proclaimed that underscores
the supposed importance of 'face'. In May, 2016, President Obama issued a
decree outlawing the words 'Black' and 'Oriental', used to describe those of
such origins. The law is ostensibly designed to prevent or eradicate ingrained
racism toward such persuasions. 'Asian American' and 'African American' are now
the correct terms. This move was heralded in China as an advance toward
civility, one that other nations should adopt.
Civility is apparently no longer a social more but a matter
of law?
True enough: change the words, change the meaning, as in
this example. “You have a face that would stop a clock!” - meaning: “You are so
ugly even clocks break when you look at them!”. Said another way: “When I see
you, time stands still” alludes to the clock being stopped (by ugliness), but
the sentiment is much less offensive. The logic follows that changing the name
of certain races/ethnicities might have the same effect, right?
What has that new law done for America? Since November 9th,
when Donald Trump was declared the winner in the presidential race, hate crimes
against those of other races have flared: more than seven hundred instances in
the past 2 weeks, laws regarding civility notwithstanding. People of
racial/ethnic origins other than white are living in fear of attack. In the
streets, in schools, on college campuses: no one is safe.
On a college campus in Michigan, a student wearing a
hijab was threatened because of her religious garb: “You can't wear that here
anymore. Take it off or I'll set you on fire” the accuser said, brandishing a
lighter.
Read the full article here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/13/university-of-michigan-student-wearing-a-hijab-threatened-to-be-lit-on-fire-police-say/
That young man did not wake up, the day after the election,
suddenly deciding to harm other individuals because of their beliefs. Such
prejudice is ingrained! It takes years of conditioning to arrive at the
conviction that one has the right (the duty?) to offend and threaten and harm
others because their beliefs are divergent. To believe that one is absolutely
in the right, simply because of their race or ethnicity.
Britain has also seen a spike of racially motivated crime
since Brexit. Figures show a 41% surge of racist or religious abuse in the
month after the UK voted to leave the European union.
Standing at a bus stop, a Brazilian-born man was speaking
to his Mexican wife in Spanish when a woman approached them: “Do you speak
English? Can you understand what I'm saying? This is
our country. We are leaving the EU. We will stop having so many people like you
over here.”
Read the full article here: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37640982
How can mere words change so deep
a prejudice? What law can be made to prevent such hate and disdain? How can
anybody think that 'face' is going to stop people from hating and fearing what
they do not understand?
And that is the danger of 'face'.
Not just concealing your feelings from those you wish to direct them to, but
the fact that those feelings and ideas are left to fester and grow like the
very worst social cancer, eating civilization from the inside out, one person,
one family, one generation at a time, and nobody sees it until it explodes onto
society, virulent and rampant.
Bernie Noel, a man in Britain who runs prison gyms for the
inmates, puts the fallacy of 'face' succintly: “(... in the 1970s) you knew who
the racists were – they were shouting their heads off. Now
I look around and think, well some of you are still thinking those things but I
don't know who you are anymore.”
Read the article here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37924448
And that is the sad truth of
'face'.
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