Posted February 12, 2015
I don't think much about racial politics. I live in one of the whitest towns in the UK and I don't interact with people much anyway so for me race issues are a lot like problems with console only games. However bad they might be and upsetting it is to read about they just don't feel important for me.
This mental inactivity was broken recently when I was called a racist for saying I was happy with Peter Parker as Spiderman rather than a black guy. For what it's worth I never like it when a white male character is replaced and a black guy or a woman for the sake of diversity, and if that make me racist.... Sorry?
But this has made me think about how racial issue have or haven't affected me and it reminded me that there was a time when I didn't know racial differences existed at all.
When I was a kid I didn't "see" different colour skin. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with me but that some people had different colour skin seemed no stranger than the fact that I had blond hair while my dad's was black. And nobody ever brought it up beyond it being aware of a little visual difference in some people I didn't really know that there were any differences.
That all changed when was ten and told my teacher about a song I'd learned called Back of the Bus. She asked me if I knew about the history of the song. I didn't. As far as I knew it was just a cool song. She told me all about Racial segregation in America, Martin-Luther King, the civil rights movement and all that jazz. I think it would be fair for me to say that I've never quite seen black people (or any non white people) the same way since.
So, was I unusually for being colour blind for so long? Does everyone do through this revelation? Do some people see different races from three years old? Can racial awareness be a good thing? Should Ben Affleck Play Barack Obama even though Obama is only half white? I look forward to hearing your answers.
Thanks for reading.
This mental inactivity was broken recently when I was called a racist for saying I was happy with Peter Parker as Spiderman rather than a black guy. For what it's worth I never like it when a white male character is replaced and a black guy or a woman for the sake of diversity, and if that make me racist.... Sorry?
But this has made me think about how racial issue have or haven't affected me and it reminded me that there was a time when I didn't know racial differences existed at all.
When I was a kid I didn't "see" different colour skin. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with me but that some people had different colour skin seemed no stranger than the fact that I had blond hair while my dad's was black. And nobody ever brought it up beyond it being aware of a little visual difference in some people I didn't really know that there were any differences.
That all changed when was ten and told my teacher about a song I'd learned called Back of the Bus. She asked me if I knew about the history of the song. I didn't. As far as I knew it was just a cool song. She told me all about Racial segregation in America, Martin-Luther King, the civil rights movement and all that jazz. I think it would be fair for me to say that I've never quite seen black people (or any non white people) the same way since.
So, was I unusually for being colour blind for so long? Does everyone do through this revelation? Do some people see different races from three years old? Can racial awareness be a good thing? Should Ben Affleck Play Barack Obama even though Obama is only half white? I look forward to hearing your answers.
Thanks for reading.