Michael Carr-Gregg, one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists, states that, ‘it is by overcoming and being strengthened by adversaries that enables us to develop resilience.’ It is by building up our resilience, our tolerance towards BS, that we may begin to enjoy life. As we learn to realize that the thoughts of others are insignificant, we will well and truly be content. This can happen by a series of unfortunate events, and those events may include racism.
Now, some may argue that racism is about the rejection of a group of people so its ridiculous to think that even a small dosage of it can be beneficial. However, they probably haven’t heard of the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, who came up with the theory ‘deconstruction’, which is an idea that the definition of words actually possess’ the antonym. So yes, racism is the rejection of a particular group, but according to the Frenchman’s theory, it is also about acceptance. As contradictory and absurd as that sounds, the following reinforces this.
Joy Chan, an Australian who is from China claims that she has accepted racism is a part of life. ''Some people are just not going to like you, whether it's your race or your gender,'' she says. ''They're things I can't change about myself. I don't want to stop being Chinese. It is who I am, it's part of my heritage.'' This is a prime example of racism having the opposite effect and