How to really understand racism...

ANSWER: By being one of the people being racist at...

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/2015205/Microsoft-Poland-Photoshops-Black-Guy-To-White-One

........

Um, no.

I am a white American living in Japan. I've been here about 10 years. People say racist things to me all the time. No, they don't mean any offense (usually), but that doesn't mean that I don't get offended. But I didn't used to.

When I first got here, little comments like "Oh! You can use chopsticks!" and "Wow, you can write kanji just like a Japanese person!" and "everyone move over; Klein needs space" (even though I am a very little guy), I thought it was quaint.

Now when those comments are made, it makes me feel excluded. As if I can never be treated normally, just because of my brown hair and blue eyes. The novelty has worn off.

A woman complemented me on my amazing Japanese a few months ago when I used a word I literally learned in my first semester of Japanese study. It bummed me out the rest of the day.

Then there's the "special" treatment you get from cops. And drunks.

Maybe at one point I thought minorities in the US were being oversensitive, but I think that after 10 years, I finally get it. Finding hateful racist people is getting harder every day, thank god, but when you're a minority, everything is just a little racist. You're treated differently, and it doesn't have anything to do with how you act or what you can or can't do. It just comes down to your physical attributes, and you can't change those. It just gets... tiring.

But I have it better than minorities in the US or Canada or wherever. This is not my home country. If I ever get totally sick of it (and I'll be honest, there are some things happening these days that are really making me question if it's worth being here--the cops' treatment is getting more special by the day), I can go home to the US where I'll be just another regular white guy. But a regular black guy in the US can't go anywhere. It's his home, and his life is one of being treated differently every single day. I understand why some people get touchy. I'm getting touchy, and I don't have it anywhere near as bad as black people in the US.

So there's the perspective of a white guy who has figured it out without any brainwashing.

Watch your mouth, people. It sucks when the main thing people remember about you is your race.

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