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Linda Weide's avatar

RR I would like to point out that skin color is not race, it is a genetic variation of human being, just as eye color, hair color, lobe detachment or attachment, longer first or second toe, etc... Our race is human. That is what I put down, that is what my family puts down in every instance, or we put "other" if there is not an opportunity to put that. After Nazism "race" is not a category that Germans have on their census. Perhaps after Trumpism we can move beyond it in the USA too. I come from educated privilege as well. I live in the community where Barack Obama made his Chicago home, and the number of Black academics and millionaires is ever growing. However, that is despite racism (the idea that color gives you a different race). I am grateful for diversity in appearance. The world would be just that much more boring if we did not have it.

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JDinTX's avatar

If all humans looked pretty much the same, we would still find a way to “peck down,” would we not. The alphas always rule, somehow

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Emily Pfaff's avatar

Linda Weide.

"White skinned" persons (I am one) are the most insecure of creations. ....always looking to elevate ourselves by putting someone else down be it skin color, or where one lives...how one dresses, or where one vacations if one can afford a vacation, ...how many things one has or where one works...sad and tragic...trying to make oneself "above" another.

I was so ashamed to realize as an adult that when the great black musicians I loved to listen to were done after hours of entertaining young white people, they had to plan ahead where they would be able to go to rest, to get a shower and find a place to sleep that night to get a good meal...I, tragically.... had no clue!!!!

The only thing I do vividly remember were the horrible conditions of the bathrooms for people of color at "filling stations".

Racism is dehumanizing....it is one of the most horrible tragedies of mankind.

I keep thinking it will go away but it keeps raising its evil head of destruction.

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Richard Smith's avatar

Indeed! The famous saying, “How many black people live in Africa?” The answer is “There are no black people living in Africa.” There are Nigerians and Kenyans, but Black is a European and American term. It is part of our intrinsic racism. All of us who coined the concept that skin color was a category of human beings. Race itself is the supporting pillar of all Racism.

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Gina's avatar

So true-how ironic also because most “Blacks” do not have Black skin.

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Nancy's avatar

I agree wholeheartedly and although an old white woman if any paperwork asks me to choose my race I will not fill in a box. I write in bold letters, Human Race—Shame On You. I read Caste-the origins of our discontent by Isabel Wilkerson awhile ago and recently watched Hulu’s portrayal of the book, Origin. It is such an eye opener.

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Gina's avatar

In the early 90s I went to Sweden to teach a course called Race, Religion and Culture to a group of CEOs.

At that time they couldn’t understand why America was tracking people’s skin color forcing us to check boxes.

Now with so much immigration I think they have a much better understanding about how racism works.

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Janan Broadbent's avatar

Nancy: Yes, I urge everyone to see the movie Origin based on the book. It is not race, after all Jewish people sre white too but …

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Kathy Hughes's avatar

I have read Caste, it’s a great book.

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Maureen's avatar

I do the same. Race does not belong in any survey. We all belong to the human race.

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Kathy Hughes's avatar

Race is a social construct, not a biological one.

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