I've been the target of racism pretty frequently since I've lived and gone to school and worked in and around various bad neighborhoods for a long time. There are plenty of places I won't take Julia anymore given my experiences there. There's never been any physical violence toward me or anything, but random shouts of "I hate you white boy" get old pretty quick, and a couple times when Julia and my sister have gone out together they've been accosted. I don't let them go there anymore at night if I'm not around.
Anyway, I've never understood if there really and truly are people out there who just hate someone because their skin is different. I can't imagine a less coherent reason. It only seems logical to me that some people just clash so heavily with another culture that they start to pile assumed transgressions on people who they've never even seen before. I mean... IS that what racism is, or is it really just an arbitrary hate that stems from practically nothing? Because if it's simply an inability to live comfortably around other cultures, I'm probably as racist as you get. But it doesn't really have to do with race. I hate white guys that act like ghetto thugs just as much as I hate any ghetto black or mexican or asian thug. And it isn't like I'm somehow afraid of things that I like which may have come out of a particular race or culture. I love jazz, and a friggin' ton of the best stuff came from black artists. It's black music. So what? I like a lot of weird asian shit too just because it happens to interest me, and it doesn't matter whether or not somebody can identify it as asian and associate me with it. What do I care? I've got nothing against people from either background.
So yeah, I've never quite known how to deal with racism. I don't get it not just because it seems unfathomable, but because I can't really even make sense of what other people actually think it *is*.
