Today’s Video Saturday is all about albinism. I don’t know how, but after about three hours of fascinated clicking I arrived at the Wikipedia article on Albinism in popular culture and was very fascinated by the fact that I had never realized that albinos are actually portrayed rather poorly on TV. Then, several days later, I found this adorable picture of an albino hedgehog:
So it’s only natural that I show you something about albinism this Saturday. Let’s start with this very interesting introduction to albinism, which – coincidentally – has been uploaded to YouTube TODAY.
Next is an 8 minute documentary about an
African woman with albinism and about how
albinism is seen as something bad there:
Next we have an albino squirrel:
I hope you learned something and enjoyed the videos. Comment, and be sure to check out the aforementioned article on Albinism in popular culture or just generally check out the Wikipedia article on albinism.
The second video shows, again, that many of us humans still behave like our pre-historic ancestors, always afraid of strangers, always shying away from difference, even when it’s as little as the lack of pigmentation. And it saddens me, it saddens me that in a nation that so recently embarked on an adventure to part away from a past of discrimination, the echoes of the old days still cause all this pain.
I wonder: is this just ignorance or is it something more? Is this fear of the unknown, and of the alien so deeply engraved in our genes that we can’t get away from it? Is there no way of making people judge people only for what they think and what they do, not for what they look like?
I suppose it’s mostly that people are afraid of whatever is “different” from them, the fear of the unknown, as you said. Also, as they said in the South Africa video that people make up these rumors and superstitions that albinism was contagious or that their blood could heal diseases, which certainly doesn’t help. And evidently, not everyone there knows about albinism and so if black parents have a white child, that might cause misunderstanding… like in the Mecano song:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=A3REPMDSCh4
It’s sad and like you, I wish that there were a way of making people judge people only for what they thing and what they do, not for what they look like. The best thing we can do, I suppose, is to lead by example. :)