Wednesday, September 10, 2014

People of Color

     Recently, I have heard African Americans (Blacks) refer to theirself as a "Person of Color", which seems funny to me because we (all humans) have color.  I know of zero human beings that are colorless (clear), they would be invisible.  In the US it seems we are overly concerned with black and white race issues, but the truth is no one has pure white colored skin. A styrofoam coffee cup is white, no person is truly white, we are all people of color.  In this world you will find people with many different completions such as fair, black, brown, olive, yellow, red, etc.  These seem like relatively minor differences.  Humans have many things in common but we seem to concentrate on skin color, why?

     So instead of getting wrapped around the axel with skin color which seem to pull us apart why aren't we looking for those similarities that bring us together?  I'm a tennis player and I have played for many years with people of many races but on the tennis court we are just tennis players.  I play in a doubles league but I also play singles with a friend (Joe) every week.  Joe is black but he once referred to himself as a person of color, I chuckled a little inside but didn't comment, but if it comes up again I will explain that I have color too.  He's a friend so it's easy for me to be me.  We joke around with each other like most guys, but we play to win and have fun.  We have a common ground that binds us which is the sport of tennis.  We may have different backgrounds, upbringing, religion, personality but we don't let that get in the way.

     Here's an idea for US citizens instead of classifying people by race, religion or heritage.  Let's start by looking for some common ground, something that we can all get behind.  How about just calling ourselves "Americans" without all the adjectives.  We should all be proud of that.  "Just Saying..."

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