I’m glad you’re so sensitive to it, Trudy. If more of us would be that way, may we could make a bigger dent in stopping some of the racial badmouthing. It especially hurts when someone we know says things like that. 🙁

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Debbie. I have just started reading “The New Jim Crow” which is helpful commentary on understanding racism that still continues today. Thankfully my parents didn’t allow the ’n’ word, but I know my grandparents used it without even thinking about it. 🙁

Isn’t it interesting how it sometimes takes a personal relationship with someone for us to break out of our biases? I appreciate you sharing this story about your niece, Lynn. I’m sure this has been an especially difficult season for her. I also appreciate your confession about your initial feelings toward your daughter’s Muslim friend. What a beautiful ending to your story though! I think about how many wonderful blessings in my life that I would have missed if I hadn’t taken a few “risks” similar to that and gotten to know people who might have initially frightened me for one reason or another. Thank you, God, for second chances!

I listen to a podcast called Code Switch and it has been very enlightening to hear of other racial biases many have towards others beyond the black-white-brown divides that we usually hear: Asians, Iranians, Caribbeans, etc. It’s interesting that you’ve gotten lumped into a stereotype on both sides of the issue.

Changing hearts through your actions: that’s the way to go, Andrew. Thanks for sharing.

I really appreciate Lisa’s caring, thoughtful essay, and yet your words really ring true, Andrew. Thank you for *your* thoughtfulness and courage in including them. My niece, who is half Mexican, often feels very marginalized in America in discussions on race. She has experienced real prejudice and has been seared by it. Racial difficulties in America (in the world) are far more expansive than just “black and white.” So often this is not mentioned. Hearts change, one by one, as we approach individuals, in love, not defined or limited by race, but seeing and appreciating people for the beauty and gifts they bring individually. I’m hardly saying this well, and for that I truly apologize. And I repent for times when I have let fear rule my life and, therefore, govern my actions…. like it did when my daughter brought home her Muslim friend from Saudi Arabia for dinner. I resisted this at first (to my own shame). But oh how interacting with this wonderful young man, one on one, welcoming him into our family changed my life. He is a delight, and I wouldn’t have missed our friendship with him for anything!
Fondly,
Lynn

We’re losing sight of the individual, and moving – black and white – toward a kind of class totalitarianism.

I’m Asian, so I don’t identify with either white or black…but I’m either dumped into the ‘white privilege’ pool, or told I should be an angry minority.

My skin colour is different; my facial features are different; my body type is different. Nothing I do will change either these, or how people perceive them. (I’m Mongolian, with features that are almost Semitic and a skin tone that comes straight from the Yangzhou.)

But I can change hearts through my actions, giving in neither to anger nor to collective guilt, because they don’t solve my problems.

They don’t solve ANYONE’S problems.

http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2017/04/your-dying-spouse-300-bucket-list.html