You live such a protected life.

"I've never seen it, so it must not exist"

Well damn. Terrorists, KKK members, and North Dakotan's must not exist either cuz I've never met any of them.

I'm mixed race. When they removed me from Tech due to some credit issues I got called into the Vice President's office. Little tiny old white lady, big ass cop standing between me and her. I'm here, white and black mixed, not sure what's up. She goes through her official spiel. Then tells the cop to 'remove this abomination' from her office. She knew my parents, knew I was mixed. Has no problem with whites, or blacks - just mixed. Called me an abomination within ten feet of me.

The moment I realized what she said, processed it, it must have shown on my face because the big guy dropped his hand down to his gun.

So yeah. Racism's still alive, and if you took time to study the issue, there's a lot more of it than you realize. Sometimes people go out of their way to try and talk it up, to draw more ATTENTION to it.

Do you know why? Because of people like you. Racism-deniers. "It's not that bad." Other people see this, they believe this because people keep saying it, when it's categorically false. So no one thinks much about it. It's very much alive. I've had to fend off an attack by (presumably) drunk KKK against my family down here in the South twice now.

The looks I get, the way people change their tone of voice when speaking to me. You can always tell which ones are judging you for all the wrong reasons. The way people cross to the other side of the street when I'm walking down and doing that ******** whispering thing, then I see them do it again later on when some thug is going down THAT side of the street. Or how people think I can't hear them and it's ****** this ****** that look at the monkey.

Nevermind how it affects a working environment or social life. Sure, it's fine at first, but when you've been exposed to that **** your whole life? It starts to get to you, and it's not even just the South. I've traveled all over this country. The only time people thought it was NEAT that I was (half)black was in Japan, back when my family was stationed there.

It's there, and there's people who are trying to say it doesn't exist, or it's not that big a deal, or it's just being made up, or even worse - racism APOLOGISTS saying that you should be allowed to be racist towards people.

So really, go on. Tell me how you're so much better because somehow you know how much racism is in the world. Tell someone who suffers because of it while you explain it away and make it all sound okay.

In the land of the free, we call it, "Color!"