I’ll be honest, this project has opened my eyes in a way.

For quite some time, I believed that the terms race and ethnicity were pretty much the same thing.

It turns out that it’s not entirely true, as race defines a person’s physical characteristics, and ethnicity describes as language, religion, and customs.

What’s interesting to know is that people can have more than one ethnicity, but only one race. To be honest, though, I can see how that would work out.

A notable example of such would be with the Migrant Caravan that has been camping out along the US Southern Border for the past few months.

If you were to take a look at a picture of the caravan, you would notice that the majority of the migrants share a skin tone and hair color.

But look again, and you’ll see that they carry with them different clothing, religious beliefs, and a few different languages.

In addition to this, the members of the caravans have different reasons for leaving their home nations. Some are attempting to escape from poverty, others from the violence their governments or criminal activity have inflicted.

Of course, race and diversity can lead to a fair share of problems.

Just recently, the New York Times have released as story that Native American students that attend a high school in Montana are facing a sort of discrimination.

Tutors don’t show up to appointments, and failing students are scolded rather than encouraged to catch up to their peers. Native Americans also have the lowest graduation rate of any demographic group.

You’d think that after all these years of progress and social reform, things should have improved by now. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, does it?

And then there’s white privilege.

In the past, white men were granted more rights and greater privileges then women and men of minorities. Women of color have even claimed that they were forcibly oppressed when speaking about their issues.

This issue continues to this day, but now is a lesser-discussed issue, as very few white men are willing to open up about it. Several also believe that racism isn’t even an issue for them, since they aren’t racist themselves.

Speaking of which, novelist Lionel Shriver gave a speech asking students to ‘look in the mirror and wonder if we had been confusing it with a window’.

She also portrayed writers who are white to be ‘besieged by fierce and powerful forces that are leveraging punitive controls.

However, Shriver’s claim has received a mixed reception across the community.

Kaitlyn Greenidge, a novelist who’s also African-American, stated that writers can make a character of a different race, but to do it without criticism.

Lula Carson Smith, another author, sets an example for other writers to follow with a large mixture of characters having their lives described in great detail.

The press has gotten some heat as well. Several people are concerned that reporters are misinterpreting any multi-race events they cover.

Fortunately, efforts have been taken into effect to quell these feelings. The Maynard Institute of Journalism Education in Oakland, California has introduced a program called ‘faultlines’. This program allows their students to develop an insight on the issues that set people apart, and to bring them into focus in their writing.

Social media has played a part in unifying people of different races and ethnicities too.

People can meet on chat forums and explain in detail about what their differences and hopefully gain information on each other.

Also on the Internet, diaspora, which is the dispersion of any people from their original homeland, is heard of everywhere, and more people are talking about it then ever.

Advertising campaigns, films, video games, online petitions have been established to combat racism,.

So to sum everything up in a nutshell, race is based on physical aspects, while ethnicity is what is cultural.

Problems with racism and bigotry still exist, but now people are going onto the Internet to combat it directly with other people. Authors and news students are being taught to include every side to a story.

Who knows?

Maybe there’s hope after all.

Later.

Islamophobia – hideous word.

Sorry, just tried to bring out a little of my Lovecraftian side there. Ha ha.

All jokes aside, this is a very real and serious topic to cover. There is absolutely no reason for Muslims, or any other ethnicities in general, to be treated like this.

I was aware of the issues that followers of Islam are facing nowadays for quite some time now, especially with the recent mass shooting in New Zealand. What I never expected, however, was just how far back these feelings of hatred, racism, and bigotry would reach.

On March 7th, Dawood Walid, the executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), hosted a conference that discussed the how the image of Islam has changed with American politics have changed over the years.

What I learned that night, needless to say, was quite surprising, interesting, and somewhat unsetting all at the same time.

Muslims have been in America as far back as before its beginning, as several thousand of enslaved Africans were Muslim. There’s even some evidence that there were Muslims before Columbus landing in America.

Shortly after, people labeled as Ottomans and ‘Moors’ (people from Northern Africa) were enslaved and forcibly baptized.

Given the facts on how enslaved Africans were treated during those times, it’s easy to understand that Islam was prohibited from being practiced.

This can be considered to be the first traces of Islamophobia in the US.

However, there were some Americans who did harbor some sympathy towards Islam as a religion, most particularly Thomas Jefferson. He called them “Muhammidans”, but did have good feelings towards their way of life.

After the Thirteen Colonies gained independence, the kingdom of Morocco, a largely Muslim nation, was among the first to recognize the US as a nation, and even passed the Moors Sundry Act of 1790, which ensured that people of Morocco were not to be given laws governing black people or slaves.

Ironically, there were some slaves in the South who were freed because they stated they were Muslim.

Jump ahead to the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and Muslims began to come willingly to the US. Several ended up settling in Michigan, particularly in Detroit. Henry Ford ended up hiring several of them to work in his automobile plants.

In 1910, the first Muslim ban was taken into effect. Muslims coming from the Ottoman Empire were forbidden from entering the United States. All of this was because that Islam and American values couldn’t mix.

Simply put, “If you allow Muslim men to enter America, and if Islam allows polygamy, then the Muslim men will start making polygamy with the American women”.

What? Who’s the genius who came up with that?

This ban wouldn’t be the last one either. A second, and more thorough, ban came into effect with the Immigration Act of 1917. Immigration from the Middle East, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and several other places were completely shut off, all because they believed that Americans believed that this would cause “yellow-peril” (corruption, lesser intelligence, danger to American way of life).

It doesn’t help that the Ottoman Empire fought in the Triple Alliance during World War I.

1924 introduced another act which banned much immigration from largely Muslim country.

So it’s clear to see that Trump’s travel ban isn’t really a new act, despite what many people say.

1964 saw a rise in Muslim immigration, thanks to the Civil Rights Act. This would be the last immigration reform in America.

Malcolm X would fight for Muslim rights as well as those for African-Americans, and would eventually start an activist movement.

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution occurred, and several Americans were taken hostage at the embassy in Tehran. This would ‘shake the American psyche’, and reports would come in every night about the status about the captives. It was then Islam was first described as a ‘barbaric’ race, and hate-crimes and vandalism would start occurring.

Then the World Trade Center bombing occurred, and Muslims were being put under scrutiny of being associated with terrorist cells. An idea of secret evidence was passed around Congress. George H.W. Bush promised to end this practice, and many Muslim-Americans ended up voting for him.

And then came 9/11, and anti-Muslim feelings went through the roof.

The PATRIOT Act was passed, and people were being spied on constantly. Not only that, Congress again stated that Islam was incompatible with American values.

There is some good in this, as Muslims began to run for political offices. More and more have become mayors, judges, state legislature, and more are not in government then ever before in American history.

But what does the future hold?

With the recent shooting in New Zealand still fresh in many people’s minds, and traces of Islamophobia still evident, has any lesson actually been learnt here?

Sure, more Muslims have been appointed into political office, and Trump’s travel ban has been lifted, but have things really improved? Can this ever be truly resolved?

Here’s the thing:

Yes, 9/11 was a horrific tragedy, but if one were to take a look at American history before and after that terrible day, you could argue that what we did to Muslims was just as bad, if not worse.

Oh, the cruel irony.

Later.

Jeremy Curtis

Digital Story

           The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion specializes in promoting diversity, as well as the creation of an equitable and inclusive environment at Oakland University. They stand by the belief that learning and diversity at the university are closely linked, and therefore should be understood by everyone.

            The office’s director, Chad Martinez, yearns to help with the spreading and accepting of diversity across the campus. In both academic and non-academic units, he and his group provide a leadership to help promote, enhance, and improve the acceptance of different people.

Martinez holds diversity with a strong regard. He describes it as being difference in characteristics, race, gender, abilities, religions, and social economics.

            “Basically, all of that makes somebody unique is kind of to me what diversity is,” he said.

            Martinez has a similar view towards inclusion, stating how it’s about accepting people from different environments and making sure that they feel welcome and appreciated for participating in the events occurring around them.

            Martinez admitted that he himself had encountered a small amount of bias at during his childhood. He had switched from a well-diversified school to one that held mostly White students.

            “I can definitely recall several of the kids taking interest in me solely because of me being Mexican,” he stated. “They would just ask questions, but a lot of it was demeaning, and so eventually, I just told them to leave me alone because I didn’t want to associate with them.”

           During his time as director, Martinez feels like he’s constantly learning and evolving as a person. He has interacted with a number of people he has worked with that have different ethnicities and beliefs.

            “Whenever I get the chance to meet with people,” said Martinez. “I often ask, especially like faculty, what they study because I want to learn things. I’m constantly trying to learn. Part of it is just general curiosity, part of it is trying to connect with people that I don’t necessarily know, and part of it is to just be a person.”

            Martinez stated that he is more than willing to help anyone who may step through his doors. Several people have come to him stating that they were unhappy with the environment that they were included in, and he tries to find a way to help these people.

            “I meet with someone a little while ago that kind of made me think about my energies that I give off, the unconscious biases that everyone has, and just making sure you’re aware about new areas of awareness,” he said.

            Martinez finds great enjoyment of his work, and hopes for diversity and equity to continue to grow on Oakland University. He also hopes for people to eventually become more accepting of other ethnicities and equites.

            “I think the main thing I would say is that I would want everybody, and there are many people that are pushing this, diversity includes me, it includes you, it includes others,” he said. “It’s speaking to everybody, and there’s an element of treating people with respect. Inclusion is a little more than that, but it starts with the respectfulness. Diversity speaks to everybody, and it includes everybody, and getting that would be the main thing I want people to understand.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/22/anti-muslim-hate-crimes-soar-in-uk-after-christchurch-shootings

*sigh*

Will these events never stop? At all?

Having a mass shooting as a hate crime is bad enough. But having these hateful feelings and actions intensify after such an attack is even worse in my opinion.

Mere days after the mass shooting at the Christchurch, you’d think that the people affected and their relatives would have gained the world’s sympathies. But unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be case in some locations.

It seems that some people have taken the attack as some sort of ‘call to action’, and now they’re doing their own hate crimes.

In the UK alone, the number of hate crimes against Muslims have rising a whopping 593% in the week following the shooting.

In one city alone, Birmingham, five mosques were attacked, and Muslims in other cities across the UK have reported that people have made shooting gestures or firearm noises at them.

Even London wasn’t spared from any anti-Muslim feelings. Several Muslims there have had people shot offensive terms such as ‘you need to be shot, ‘Muslims must die’, and other derogatory messages.

The Internet is no safe haven either. Muslims are also being stalked and harassed on online chat forums.

This is getting completely ridiculous. It’s bad enough that Muslim citizens of New Zealand have been attacked, but now they’re facing discrimination and death threats across other parts of the world too.

Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve heard of this much hatred since the aftermath of 9/11. Every other person seems to follow the stereotype that all Muslims are either terrorists, or knows someone who is.

This is getting completely ridiculous. It’s bad enough that Muslim citizens of New Zealand have been attacked, but now they’re facing discrimination and death threats across other parts of the world too.

Why do these people have to suffer? Just because there have been a few extremists here and there, the whole world decides that all of them all potential terrorists, and there for all potential threats to their nations.

Again I ask, will this ever stop?

No one deserves this sort of harassment and bigotry. Muslims already have enough issues with this sort of treatment from other people. Like I mentioned, the original tragedies were bad enough, but hate crimes against the victims can be just as bad, if not worse.

Best thing to do is for this generation and the next to learn from both sides, and not to promote any discrimination and bigotry, I guess. Then maybe there can be hope for a better future.

Later.

War wears many faces.

When we hear the term, we automatically think of soldiers dressed up in combat uniforms, carrying weapons into a hostile part of the world, doing battle against their enemies.

In war however, the people who suffer the most are civilians.

When a nation is invaded and occupied, or becomes completely engulfed in conflict, the people who live normally live there usually have no other choice but to flee to other countries, thus turning them into refugees.

But the real cost occurs should these refugees decide to return to their homelands. There, they often find their nation in ruins, their economy eviscerated, friends and family either dead or still in other countries, and the risk that their enemies might still remain near their homes.

Iraq is currently going through such an issue, it seems.

Before I viewed ‘A Family’s Return to Mosul’, I was expecting to expect the family returning to the ruins of what was once their home, and then would be told that several members of their family were either missing or still refugees.

I would then be shown footage on how the family is struggling to get back onto their norm. All the while, the family would to struggle to remain clinging to hope.

I must confess that I was quite surprised at Younis Salman’s words.

Despite the fears that the family had about their house and the surrounding neighborhood, they seemed quite eager to return home. They were willing to leave the refugee camp they were living in and return to their bomb-damaged house.

Now, I know that refugee camps aren’t really the most glamorous places, but I was quite surprised that they were willing to take that big of a risk of returning to a former warzone so soon after a conflict, only four weeks if I remember correctly.

As for the overall mood, of course they were scared, but they also seemed determined to make it work. At the beginning of the film, they were setting up rugs and cloth around the room, giving the insight that they were slowly but surely readjusting back into everyday life.

I found this to be somewhat comforting, as this shows that these people have not let war completely dominate their lives, and are not afraid to make the journey back home to rebuild.

I originally believed that whenever refuges left a country, the vast majority of them would eventually find settlement in other countries. The few who would return would have great difficulty in returning to living their lives.

If given the chance to right a story about wartime refugees, I believe that getting both sides would be essential. I would want to get stories from people who would want to leave from a war-torn country, and find lives in other places, and for those who would want to return to their home countries.

The number one question I would ask those who would return to their countries why did they make that decision. Is this because that it’s just due to homesickness, or does it have some sentimental value to them? How would they attempt to rebuilt their lives?

To tell a story about war, you’ll need to get plenty of first-hand accounts. Of course, soldiers are always a gold mine of this sort of information. But it’s important that civilians who experience it too, whether they’re forced out of their home countries, or forced to be unwilling participants in battles. It might not hurt to get interviews from different factions of the conflict as well.

But regardless of which, I pray for these people. I pray that one day that they will find peace, and that they will live out their lives without the fear of invasion and destruction. I pray that one day they will one day be reunited with separated loved ones, either on their home turf, or in far away countries.

Bust most of all, I pray for that one day in which all of this fighting will stop, and I know in my heart that there are many people out there who do the same.

Later.

http://teachmideast.org/articles/what-is-the-middle-east/

The Middle East is made of a region that is comprised of countries located in southwest Asia and partially of northern Africa. The population of this massive area is stated to be around 411 million.

From what I’ve gathered from both the internet and history books, the situation in the Middle East is a mixed factor. What I mean is that both sides have a part to play in it. A few countries may or may not have been sponsoring terrorism, and the United States and her allies, in an effort to combat this terrorism, invaded these countries. Some governments have been overthrown, and democracies established, but new insurgent groups have been established, and now the US and her allies are struggling to combat them.

When I hear the term ‘occupation’, I think of how civilians attempt to live out their lives after their nation is invaded by another.

Propaganda is an attempt to harbor people’s thinking and beliefs into what their government wants them to believe. Public relations can be defined simply as making the ruling party or person look good in the eyes of the public. Lobbying is that party or person seeking public influence.

https://www.afsc.org/5-things-your-congregation-can-do-to-stop-islamophobia

‘Constructing the Terrorist Threat’ takes a deeper look at view of terrorism as a whole, as well as the labeling that has come along with it. Being released just after US President Donald Trump signed into effect his immigration ban, the documentary goes into detail about how the ban is similar to how Americans viewed the Japanese during World War II, how people are defining the word ‘terrorist’, and how terrorism as a whole is ‘misunderstood’. The documentary hopes to shed light on the issues that Muslims face nowadays, as well as try to promote acceptance towards them.

Actor George Takei, who is of Japanese decent, heavily criticized the ban, referring it to how his family, as well as many others, was treated in America during the Second World War. He described his family being forced to live in horse stalls which still contained the smell of horse manure. All across America, anti-Japanese feeling ran high, with some people going so far as to hang derogatory signs on their houses telling Japanese-Americans to leave their neighborhoods, all because they were blamed for the actions of the Japanese government. Because of the Muslim ban, Takei feels that history is repeating itself, going to ask in an article he wrote, “have we learned nothing?” Indeed, Muslims are currently facing this same sort of treatment because of this ban, with them not being able to enter the US, even though not one immigrant was responsible for a terrorist act.

Sadly, when people hear the word terrorism, they tend to automatically think of men from the Middle East or southeast Asia. When they Google Image the term, they find men from the Middle East wearing face masks, and not of men bearing radical white-supremacy images. In fact, statistics have shown that far right-wing groups have been responsible for more deaths than Muslims. What’s also shocking is that right-wingers attempted to block any release of information about these far-righters to the public. Terrorism can actually be described as a ‘socially- constructed process’, or even a political process. Also, if white people commit a violent crime, they are described as having a mental illness. When a Muslim commits a similar offense, they are automatically labeled as a terrorist, or rather it is in their culture to be violent.

Terrorism is ‘misunderstood’ mostly through how people view it as a threat. Recent statistics have shown that jihadist attacks have become less of a threat then they had during the previous decade. In the first few years following 9/11, the vast majority of Americans believed that international terrorism posed a serious threat. As the years went on, this number managed to diminish. The fact hat only 95 Americans were killed by jihadists since 9/11 may have played a factor in this change of heart. In 2016 alone, only 15 Americans were killed internationally. The threat of jihadist terrorism continues to pose as a threat, but no where near as a level as they had in previous decades. In addition to this, Muslims and terrorism as a whole are often portrayed as being intertwined in films and TV, often having them being shown to be brutal, inhumane killers, and often being labeled with derogatory names. The only ‘good’ Muslims were the ones allied with the Americans. And in real life, during the Oklahoma City Bombing, Muslims were blamed because the detonation ‘looked like those used in the Middle East’.

So how do we confront these issues that Muslims face currently? How does one speak against all of the false labels, accusations, and misunderstandings? Thankfully, in spite of all the negativity facing this issue, there is hope. The term ‘Islamophobia’ is now a common thread in some discussions, so more and more people are aware of this issue. People are now encouraged to stand up for Muslims and defend them when the need arises. Several non-Muslims have begun to attend community events with them.. Children are now being educated at a young age to accept their Muslim neighbors. And citizens have confronted their politicians into passing laws to help protect Muslims within the United States. People are also being 3educated on what exactly makes a terrorist, which does not include being Muslim in the description. Many people, both Muslim and not, pray for peace and unity for all sides. One day, in good time, they’re hoping, that peace will come.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/empire-actor-jussie-smollett-pleads-not-guilty-on-16-counts-of-disorderly-conduct-stemming-from-alleged-hate-crime-hoax

Another hate crime. Or is it?

Nope! Turns out it’s not one at all!

Jussie Smollett admitted that he had set up a whole scheme surrounding hate letters and eventually leading to him being ‘attacked and beaten’ by two men that he himself hat hired.

I’m not quite sure on what to think about this.

Actually, yes I do.

A well-known and respected actor and singer, who is also an African-American and a homosexual, falsifying a hate crime just because he wasn’t happy with his salary?

What is the world coming to?

Smollett has admitted that he had hired the two men a total of $3,500 to attack him, and the derogatory messages he supposedly “found” were sent by none other than himself.

Now, this is kind of counter-intuitive towards all of the achievements and progress that African-Americans and other minorities have made over the years, is it not?

I mean, looking back, they have fought for equal treatment and protection from these sort of crimes for several years, only for one of them to attempt to turn against everything they stood up for?

It’s kind of an insult to them, don’t you think?

Actually, no. This is more than an insult. This is more of a giant middle-finger to them and all of their accomplishments.

And to top it all off, as mentioned above, this was all just a scheme conjured by Smollett to get back at Fox because he wasn’t satisfied with the amount of money he was receiving. There was never any sort of issue with his race or sexual orientation whatsoever.

Not only that, the two men Smollett associated with will now most likely have to live with the label that Jussie Smollett of all people hired them to fake a hate crime, only for him to be charged with filing a false police report, and for them to be charged as accomplices. Not a pleasant situation for, if you ask me.

But if they were to testify in a court about everything that had happened from their angle, then it could be possible for them to get a lighter sentence. Don’t quote me though, I’m not 100% certain on how every law works.

Now, I don’t work in the entertainment industry, so I don’t know exactly on how money gets around there. But wouldn’t be more sensible to talk to your producer or supervisor if you weren’t satisfied with your pay?

And if that doesn’t work, then maybe hire a lawyer, someone who’s actually trained on how to handle those sort of situations?

But then again, this whole thing was as about garnering sympathy and support for Smollett. If the public gained support for him after a hate crime, then who’s to say that they would eventually help him get a better paycheck too?

It all comes back to money. It usually does. Only this time, they had to attempt to make it about racial tensions too.

One word: disgusting.

Later.

In the past, colleges and universities across the nation have faced various issues with diversity. Women, and then minorities fought and overcame the challenge of being able to be attend courses and achieve degrees in their interests.

Diversity continues to broaden on college campuses, although it has become less on what people look like or how they live their lives. Instead, it’s more about how their brains are “wired”, so to speak.

Yep, I’m referring to neuro-diversity, which includes the mixture of students with autism, Parkinson’s, and other disorders.

It can be quite upsetting to realize that these people are struggling on the inside, asking to be accepted for who they are, only to be perceived as ‘weird’ and unapproachable.

Being a high-functioning autistic myself, I know firsthand how frustrating it can be to live in a society that can never truly ‘understand’ you and vice versa. You want to understand the neurotypical way of life and experience it, but time and time again, you find yourself falling short.

Being a high-functioning autistic myself, I know firsthand how frustrating it can be to live in a society that can never truly ‘understand’ you and vice versa. You want to understand the neurotypical way of life and experience it, but time and time again, you find yourself falling short.

Communication with other people is often rendered as extremely difficult, and trying to figure out why people act the way the do, and which social norms are acceptable and which are not is extremely exhausting.

However, I’m glad to say that Oakland University is attempting to do something that allows autistics to interact with people who understand what they are going through.

Called OUCares, this group works to “improve the quality of life of individuals with ASD (autism spectrum disorder), their families, and our community by providing quality and comprehensive programing across the lifespan”.

In addition to this, students with ASD have found other ways to help them navigate this neurotypical world. In my experiences, I have witnessed potential (I’m not a hundred percent certain) autistics bring special tape recorders, stress balls, and even modified ear plugs to prevent potential sensory overloads (they’re nasty, let me tell you).

But the main issue is, of course, acceptance. It’s true, not everyone will accept you, and many will still treat you as an odd ball. I learned that from experience growing up. The key is not to let to it go to your head, and not use your diagnosis as a crutch through life. The more people are educated, the more they may be willing to accept you.

And if Oakland University is offering assistance in that department, then all the better.

Later.

For my first topic in regards to media diversity, I found myself thinking back to a commercial that aired during the most televised sports event in America.

That’s right. I’m talking about the Super Bowl.

Somewhere during what I believe was the first quarter, a commercial advertising Coca-Cola came on, and immediately made me think of the conversations that took place in this course.

In this animated commercial, a large group of different people of various genders, races, and ethnicities (as well as a large, furry creature) start off opening and enjoying bottles of the advertised beverage.

At first, there’s some slight hesitance for interaction, but that quickly changes.

As the commercial continues, these animated characters begin to interact with each other. Putting aside any differences they have, they talk, laugh, and even play together on a see saw, all the while enjoying their drinks.

There’s even a statement in the commercial which I found very interesting:

“Even though they [the characters in the commercial] disagree, and while the bottles look alike, you aren’t the same as me.”

This struck a cord for me as it made me recall of my presentation about race and ethnicity several weeks ago. It was during the research that the difference between race and ethnicity became clear to me, which, I admit, was often confused in my vocabulary.

So I suppose that I have to thank the professor for the clarification.

It’s funny how things come to you sometimes.

Later.

When first assigned these online bias tests, I felt uncertain on what would be encountered, since I know that these can be quite sensitive topics for people to cover. I personally don’t have any problems with any races, ethnics, or genders, but I wasn’t certain on what questions would be asked.

I ended up choosing the Racial Test. As mentioned, I do not have any issues towards any race or way of life. Honestly, I was curious what I would find taking the quiz.

I did find the overall experience to be worthwhile. The quick-answer questions were somewhat annoying, as several mistakes were made despite my knowledge of which keys to press.

When coming across the questions that covered how comfortable I felt around white people compared to black people, I honestly felt somewhat uncomfortable. As I mentioned before, I have no issue with African- Americans or anyone else, up to the point as I don’t sense any particular difference between the two.

At the end, I was surprised by the results the test provided. It found that I was more comfortable around other white people than black. I could be wrong, but could this be the result of me stating that I was white in the introductory stage? Did it automatically judge that I would be more comfortable with people that I share the same skin color?

Then again, maybe it was because I was raised up to be accepting of other people regardless of their race that I sort of was absorbed into this automatic white-privilege.

Further investigation required.

Later.