A racist white professor tells Africans Their Intellectual Ability Not Good Enough For White

a reply to: Puppylove
Wow, you've perfectly described how I feel about these things so at least you know you are not alone

In my native language (Serbian) there is a different pronoun when you talk to your peers and younger people and when you talk to your elders. The one you are supposed to use when talking to your elders is by default showing them respect and social status even tough they might be the worst possible human being on the planet. It has always bugged me and I finally felt comfortable in US where “You” is same for everyone. Then I came back to Serbia and just felt this societal pressure to conform again to “proper” speak. That's when I realized how much society, language, culture etc. forces us to behave certain way.

Perhaps that is also one of the reasons I've had no bad experiences with black people in US. In Serbia there are pretty much no black people, other than few students from Africa, so there is no societal indoctrination of how one should feel about them. So when I came to US I didn't have that “instilled by society” fear of black people. I actually looked forward to it (Michael Jordan was my childhood hero).

I don't know if you've seen movie “Reefer Madness” that came out in 1940s and was funded by US government. Its primary purpose was to spread negative propaganda against cannabis to make it illegal.
However, they also used the opportunity to further vilify black people since at that time most people smoking cannabis were black jazz musicians. There were lines in the movie to the effect of “Omg, negroes are getting our white women addicted to this evil plant and raping them”. Propaganda was so ridiculous that today that movie became cult comedy movie.

But as you are aware propaganda didn't stop. Media still promotes stereotypical image of uneducated black thug who cannot string a coherent sentence. Sad thing is some black people have embraced that image and are proud of it and are willingly promoting it themselves.

As far as people refusing to let go of race I think it's even deeper than that, people refuse to let go of pack mentality, just like animals. People of my color, my religion, my country etc.

Living in US has had huge of an impact on me in that regard. My closest friends were a white guy from Brazil, a black guy from St. Lucia and something in between guy from Morocco, who was also a Muslim and my roommate. That Moroccan guy had the biggest impact on my realization how huge of an influence ones environment has on a person.

When he just arrived to US he was devout Muslim, praying five times per day and all that. Deeper discussions about meaning of life etc. were impossible because Koran says so and it is so. However, after a few years of living in secular society I could see him drastically change. He started loosening those chains of his previous culture and all of a sudden we were able to have the best discussions about all sorts of things, even question Koran.

Realizing that my closest friends were from three different parts of the world (with quite different cultures) and me being from fourth, I lost any remaining feelings of pride or shame because of my country, color, language, all these labels keeping us separate. I realized I can only be proud (or ashamed) of things I've accomplished. Notion of being proud of my skin color or place of birth actually became ridiculous to me.

My friend, I think you have no issues, you are a true definition of a human being and I cannot even imagine utopia that we will have on this planet when people like you become the norm. I do think more and more people are awaking to these realizations of artificial separateness. I think “pack mentality” people are on their way out and we are seeing their last remaining grasps at being relevant in this organism we call Earth.
In the mean time, I would suggest, as you've already realized, be diplomatic in your dealings with people who are still concerned with all these labels but don't let them change you.
All the best to you in 2016.