Racism

I feel that anime fans or just otaku alike have been through racism at one point in their life so I am wondering have any of you been through racism and how do you handle it especially here as there is always that one person that tries to ruin a good thing when it comes to race?

Growing up as a mixed Vietnamese Laotian child in a surprisingly backwards feeling mostly Hispanic neigborhood, I was bullied a lot for just being 1 of 3 "Chinks" in our school district. Couple that with a strict single father, I learned that just staying quiet and blending into the background was my only choice. Eventually once we moved around a bunch and just growing up in general, the bullying stopped. Thankfully it wasn't anything incredibly alarming, just normal schoolyard bullying (Squinting your eyes, Speaking gibberish as though you were speaking the same language, mocking whatever the asian kid brought for lunch, etc). Other than that, I get like 1 or 2 people saying something behind my back nowadays, it's not very often, but it happens. Sadly I don't have any like uplifting thing to say I did or witnessed, it all just mainly boiled down to ignoring what I could. I feel like I didn't exactly answer the topic and I apologize if that ends up being the case.

An Asian woman who has lived in a developing country for 23 years here. I'm not really sure if a few people who are/were attracted to me are/were attracted to my Asian/Chinese shell first or my soul first. I don't hope my race plays a major role in their "affection" for me.

Well for me growing up I actually never thought about 'race'. My parents taught me to never judge others based off of the color of their skin, their religion, culture etc. So I just made friends with everyone who I got along with no matter what ethnicity they were. As I got older though I did start to notice little things, like never being invited inside the houses of my white friends even though they're always welcome at mine. I'll actually never forget how one of my friends' parents basically explicitly told them that they "don't want unfamiliar children in their house"(they were referring entirely to me and my brother who happened to be friends with them for a good 2 years at that point with that comment)...Yet they were perfectly fine with inviting these kids (who were white) that my friend and I had just met the same day inside the house. And then there was the more obvious stuff like outright being called the n-word or constantly being harassed by police for the most asinine reasons: like standing...menacingly I guess? 3-4 geeky black kids with their marching band instruments are totally hardcore drug pushing gang-bangers right? You seriously don't know how many times my black friends and I have been approached back when I was in middle school by police and were asked if we were in a gang...Like I mean it would be understandable if we looked the part but we even wore fucking uniforms at our school and we didn't live in a bad area either, it was a pretty middle class area. We were just incredibly dangerous black males who were barely over 13-14 I guess. :u I've never actually committed a crime in my life but I can't tell you how often shit like that happens, as an adult it only got worse. And before anyone pulls out the old "lol black people just need to stop committing so much crime and they won't get harassed by police so much"-bit I just have to say that I'm not "black people" I am a fucking individual. Just like how white people aren't some type of hivemind that all are privileged and racist, black people aren't a hivemind that are just predispositioned to commit crime or some shit. I really shouldn't even have to like play up the fact that I'm being a model citizen in my day to day life like this. Honestly Terry Crews put the experience of being a black man pretty well: "But the thing is, as a black man, the only time you’re really recognized as being victimized is when you’re dead. Otherwise, you don’t get hurt, you don’t get tired ... It’s like people think you’re supposed to jump through the air and dunk from one place to the next" All that being said, I try to not let that ruin anything or make me bitter or closed-minded. I'm definitely incredibly jaded now from my experiences though. It used to make me very angry because I'd see how people would dismiss the things that black people go through (especially black men) and say things like "lol it's [current year] there's no racism, that was a long time ago" I just don't have the energy for that anymore.

I personally could say that some things I've heard from people could be racist but at the same time, they weren't wrong as the stereotype met my races current predicament. So, in other words, context matters greatly and not seeing the world as "everything is sexist and racist" can help you see that there is almost no racism in the modern world and when it does take place it means little to nothing. The only kind of racism that matters is when a person of color says some racist shit and then claims that they can't be racist. Then, in turn, try to strong-arm political gain via the use of the race card. So for example pushing for workplaces to hire a person of color over a white person that is better than them. I personally don't consider race a real thing for humans but I do consider the small genetic differences. Also if someone said that scientifically and genetically speaking people from Africa show lower IQ's and intellectual abilities then that's not racist it's a "fact". People should be able to delve into science without the fear of being called racist or have it weaponized to shut down info that could help us understand the small but great differences in each human do to genetic mutations. So in short no, I have had no personal racially charged shade tossed my way and if I did I didn't remember and shows how insignificant it is.

My ex wasn't white and it doesn't matter to me at all my But as a straight white male everyone just seems to assume your a racist in some way.