Essay from Estonia

Throwing Away Prejudices of Racism 

Racism is discrimination of other people because of their skin colour, language, customs, place of birth or any other factor that supposedly reveals the origin of the person. The main reason why people have prejudices is that they do not have experience, they are not familiar with people who are different from the mainstream and they believe that other people behave wrong from what they presume. 

Due to Estonian recent history, some people from the older generation have a negative attitude towards Russians. However, most people accept that nation. This is also the background reason why we are careful about immigration and problems that it may accompany. Nevertheless, we can say that Estonians are not very racist, especially young and educated Estonians, who understand that new and different is not always bad. Why? Because we have had opportunities to study with students from other countries, they study in Estonia, and some of our young people go abroad as exchange students. And thanks to Erasmus we can go and do our training abroad, it is becoming more and more popular. I can say that my friends and the people I know are not racists. Many of them have been exchange students or have experience in working in other countries. Nowadays it seems to be popular to have a friend from another race or culture. 

The main reason why prejudices of racism decrease is globalisation that causes cultural integration and increases tolerance. Equally, movies have important role in the process. Who would not love Morgan Freeman or Jackie Chan? 

In conclusion we can say that prejudices of races are disappearing. There are many reasons, such as globalisation, educational exchange and entertainment media. I can claim that being a racist is not popular in Estonia and educated people know other cultures and accept them.