It’s 2012. The naive side of me wants to think that we live in a colorblind society that views and treats “red and yellow, black and white” equally. But you and I both know that’s not true. Regardless of what actually happened the night of his death, the Trayvon Martin case and our nation’s reaction to it demonstrates otherwise. Perhaps his death was racially motivated, perhaps not. But any time a member of one race kills someone of another, the racial motivation question comes to mind, doesn’t it? A colorblind society wouldn’t view racism as a possible motivation.

Why is race still a consideration? Slavery was abolished over a century ago. Schools were integrated and discrimination against blacks became illegal decades ago. Our current president is half black and half white. Why aren’t we past all this nonsense by now? Despite all our progress in so many areas, we still have racists. Some are open about it. Some are subtle, only revealing their true feelings around like-minded or like-skinned people. Some are mildly racist and don’t even realize it. Even those who try hard not to be racist, like me, still struggle with hidden prejudices and stereotypes that are difficult to shake.

I have a theory. Yes, some people are racist because they’ve actually had bad experiences with members of another race and assume the same for all members of that race. However, more people carry around various forms of racism mainly due to lack of exposure to members of other races.

For example, suppose you’re a 70-year-old white woman who’s grown up surrounded by white people. Your schools were segregated during your education. Blacks drank from different water fountains and swam in separate pools until you were a grown woman. You grew up in West Texas where black people are rare. Your only real impression of black people came from TV or movies in which blacks were either dangerous or inferior. Perhaps your parents and friends gave you a bad impression of them as well. Most likely, lacking any contradictory information, you’ll tend to have a negative opinion of blacks as well.

As an example more specific to DFW, for the last 10-20 years, people of Middle Eastern and Indian (from the nation of India) descent have suffered from the same ignorance. Since these groups were tiny minorities until recently, many people have had very little direct contact with them. It’s easy to assume that all Muslims are a certain way or all Indians are a certain way if you have no reason to believe otherwise and you keep hearing negative things about them from various sources in the media or your friends and family. I once heard an older man badmouthing Arabs (he pronounced the term “A-Rabs”) at length. Based on where and how he lived, I’m not sure he ever met an single “A-Rab” during his entire lifetime. But he had plenty of opinions about them.

Like I said, I’m certainly not perfect in this area, but I try hard to keep an open mind and not rush to conclusions based solely on a person’s race. Why? Partly because that’s what Jesus did during his time on earth. Partly because I’ve been blessed to know a wide variety of people from an assortment of race and nations, giving me firsthand information to combat the negative stereotypes. Here are a few of my non-white friends who I’m proud to know:

High School Tennis

• Shihab, a Muslim from Bangladesh
• Biran, a Hindu from Pakistan
• Reza, a halfhearted Muslim from Iran (I think)
• Jimmy, a Buddhist from Southeast Asia
• Nabeel, a Muslim from somewhere in the Middle East

High School Gospel Choir

• Ebonye, a black soprano singer who also served as class president
• Steve, a black tenor who helped lead our group
• Rest of the crew (I was one of a handful of white guys), great singers and great people who didn’t look down on us for having different colored skin

Baylor

• Ali and Akbar, both Muslim computer science majors
• Elle, a black woman from my interdisciplinary program who is an authentic African princess but never let on or expected special treatment

Work

• Marvin, Doug, Chris, and Chris, all black men
• Miguel and Stephanie, both Hispanic
• Ashvina, an Indian woman
• Lin and Gene, both Asian men

I’m sure you get the point by now. When I hear someone say Muslims are evil terrorists, I think of Ali, who couldn’t blow someone up if his salvation depended on it. When I hear people say black people are lazy, I think of Chris, who works two jobs and put himself through school while helping to support his wife and three kids. While stereotypes might apply to some people within a group, I personally know people who break many of those stereotypes, enough to know it’s foolish to assume all people of a certain race (or religion, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, nationality, etc.) are the same.

I’m a bit concerned about my children, though. Although Jenny and I will teach our boys not to judge people based on their race, and I haven’t heard them even mention the different colors of skin, the public schools in our district are overwhelmingly white. Perhaps we have ourselves to blame; we chose to live here partly for the well-regarded schools. But they won’t receive the benefit of a highly multiracial school like I did. They could fall into the common trap of making racial judgments about people due to simple ignorance. We may need to work hard to counteract that tendency and make sure they don’t spend their entire lives surrounded only by people who look like they do.

We cannot be blind to the colors of our skin. Perhaps we shouldn’t, since true colorblindness would prevent us from recognizing and benefiting from the differences in our heritage, culture, and other gifts. But we can fight the urge to make assumptions based upon a person’s skin color. If we can blind ourselves to preconceived notions about what someone of a certain race is like, we’ll take a big step toward eliminating some of the nastiness that still simmers beneath the surface of our society.