Colors of the World

A recent entry by Tony Pierce describes his feelings on racism. It seems that he was sent an anonymous message from someone who had a thing or two to say about the color of his skin. Obviously, the comments directed at Tony were to get a rise out of him, and it appeared to have succeeded. I absolutely loved his response to this anonymous flame. Congratulations go to Tony directly for putting this intellectually-challenged knuckle-walker into her place.

Racism is a funny thing. It is entirely a social problem; thus it is an observed and learned behavior. It is generated and disseminated by a lust for power and fear. Children do not know racism until it is observed.

As a child, I had little grasp on what racism was, or how it affected the world. I lived in (and still do) one of the last pockets of exclusively-Caucasian landscape. When I say this, I mean less than 1% of the population I live in is of a visible minority. When I was very young, my family lived in a poor, densely populated neighborhood. Even then, I only recall one or two children that had East-Asian features. Did that matter to me? No. I still played with them, regardless of their facial features, or the color of their skin. I did not know a thing about racism, and my parents understood and respected the diversity of God's creations.

Since Alberta has been province that is growing rapidly, many people are immigrating to Alberta for work, even from neighboring provinces. The older I grew, I began to notice an increase in the frequency of visible minorities in my little city. This has had little impact on me, though I am sure it has impacted many residents. Racism runs wild in my neck of the woods.

I see people of visible minorities on a daily basis in my city, and they intrigue me. I want to meet them, and get to know them. It is very likely that they would have some fantastic stories to tell me about their lives, and their culture. More often than not, something stops me. I am afraid that they may not trust me. I am afraid that they might consider me as prejudiced as the next man, though this is not the case.

I never ever thought Tony Pierce as a black man. I always considered him a fellow blogger, who is equally intelligent and creative. The same goes for Xiaxue, whom I never considered her to be East Asian. In fact, she writes better English than most English-speaking people I know. I never considered Jimi Hendrix to be a Black guitarist, or William Hung as a Chinese tone-deaf singer who can't dance (but I think he is tone-deaf, and he can't dance).

You get the picture. I wouldn't ever consider myself a racist. The proof is in the women I have dated. I have dated Caucasian women, Japanese women, and Native Americans. There might be a few others in the list, but my memory is a bit fuzzy after all the beer and whiskey I drank in College. We may be diverse in our features or by our cultures, but in the end we are all people.