I have listened and read the articles posted here about race and I would like to say something without being misunderstood which is why i started my own article instead of responding to a string.
On Preference: I don' t prefer a certain group of people over another. People are people, different tempraments, characters and norms sure but still people.
On Minority vs Majority: I went to a predominantly white school in a country where black people are the majority and whites, though provileged are not exactly favored. I know what it feels like to be part of the majority, the rest of the people don't matter much when you are. And being ignorant of the minorities is something that is common and not an issue. I also know how it feels like to be a minority, feeling like everyone doesn't understand you and they are out to get you. Feeling like you have to keep a tight grip on who you think you are because if you lose that then you are nothing.
On Hate: At 15, my best friend, her family and I watched a movie called "Cry Freedom" which abbreviates the attrocities commited during Apartheid in South Africa. I came out of the movie theater crying and harbouring an intense hate for white people because people like them had hurt people like me. That night I went home to my best friend's house and we talked till late about how terrible people were to one another and about how I was now a racist because white people needed to pay for what they did. My best friend vehemently agreed with me, she was white.
skin based privileges: Is it unfair to gain privileges because of the color of your skin? What about the disadvantages? In America, a black person is most likely to be wrongfully accused of a crime, in China a black person has a difficult time getting a job teaching english regardless of whether they are native or not. In England, black immigrants are only served the worst manial jobs. In France, you are most likely to be searched and interrogated at the airport if you are black, worse if you speak no French. So the privileges pointed out are just like the privileges everyone enjoys because of their color just reverse my disadvantages to get a head start on your privileges.
I have lived in 3 countries in my life, 2 of them as a minority and 1 as a member of the majority. I have gained nothing from being a member of one and not the other and I have received no special favors either. My parents are neither rich nor poor. Noone in my family was ever a slave or on social security. I have travelled to over 13 countries on my own means. I volunteer, I work, I study, I read, my list of friends reads like a rainbow collage. I expect nothing from people and everything from myself. Sure life has been unfair but whose life is perfect? I don't hate Chinese people when they won't give me a job because of my color, there is just a little problem in their thinking there. I don't hate or complain about my fellow whites getting jobs I am qualified for because they are white...everybody has dreams, everybody has to live. If you can get by because of your color, I congradulate you, my piece of the pie is around the corner so don't hate me when I enjoy it. If I only liked black people and only enjoyed their company, I would be a very lonely person with no friends since all but 2% of my friends are white.
Its good to have opinions and to voice them. Don't hate though. That's the quality of an idiot and a narrowminded individual. Things and people that are different from us may make us uncomfortable or uneasy, the cheapest escape is to put up walls and embrace ignorance. I choose my friends not because of their color but because of the input and quality they bring to my life. I'd rather have one dependable white friend with whom I have everything in common and with whom I love and connect than a whole village of black friends whose only connection I have with them is our blackness. Hate is a cowardly defence mechanism used to protect ourselves from things we are afraid of, things that make us uncomfortable.
When all is said and done, I acknowledge hate because love exist, I acknowledge racism because such a thing as a global community exists. I will not however participate in any form of hate, I will not prefer a fellow human over another, if I was hanging from a cliff, I would pray and wish for a human hand and not that of a dog or cat and I don't care what color that hand is either. If I saw you lying on the side of the road in distress, I would stop and help a person regardless of whether you are purple or black. Sometimes travelling is good for it helps one realise that life, this world is not an Island, borders expand beyond, cliches, families, gender, color, race. And because we live, we all touch each other in both positive and negative ways. I don't hate people who hate me because I am black, that would be easy. I try to look for the positive in people and to find ways to explain their behavior, after all they are people like me and people go through things that are sometimes difficult to deal with.
I am black and proud to be black. But I am not arrogant enough to separate myself from the rest of the world, from other people who don't look and smell like me. That would be a damn shame for me to be like that.
There I have said it, and now at least one black person on this site has participated in this tiring subject.