America's Colors

America is one of the few countries where the majority of its inhabitants see an individual's color (race) or their ethnic group, before any other characteristics about that person. Americans are too quick to categorize and, in a way, judge a person off of their appearance (the part of their appearance of which they've no control over.) 

Europeans often criticize us for such behavior (although Europe isn't so innocent either.) Places like France and Brazil down in South America look just like America: a giant melting pot of people from all over the world, mingling with one another. Many people don't even notice the differences in race or ethnicity in such countries.

Their inhabitants seem to get by rather well. America will never see that day if we cannot see past each other's shade of skin. It's what's holding us back as a society.

The black/white issue is probably something that will be alive in this country for many years to come. Especially if we allow it to happen.

Perhaps we should take some ideas from France. It is illegal to publicly say anything prejudice about anyone's race, ethnic group, or religion. It is also illegal to collect racial data of the country's population. If we didn't know the percentages of what each racial group and ethnic groups make up within the country's population, perhaps we wouldn't care about it. And perhaps we wouldn't notice it either.

On my favorite news station recently, they made an effort to report that the people who were for and against the Trayvon Martin case verdict were racially divided. They even announced the percentages of each race on both the supporting and opposing sides. These types of things are setting us back. Just unnecessary contribution to the not so much growing, but definitely not fizzing out problem in this country.

It's no one's fault that the country has had an on going racial divide, particularly between non-Hispanic whites and blacks. It's something that those before use caused to happen.

It is, however, our fault that it is still going on.

Sometimes the very same people trying to push us forward, are the same people holding us back.

And it's always good to remember, that there really is no such thing as race. It depends on what part of the world you come from.