When I was in my mid-twenties I had a job in West Oakland, California. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to get to know what it was like be of a different skin color than my "normal" pale hue. I assumed it would be just like being white, but with a different skin color. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I asked the shop foreman a few times what this was about, or what that meant. He would go back to the other non-white workers and talk to them for a few minutes, then come back and answer my question. I don't remember any specific questions or answers, but after three years of working there I finally came to realize that there were differences. I didn't know what those differences were, but I started to realize they were there.
A couple of years later I was watching an episode of 21 jump street on TV. This was the original show with Johnny Depp and a very mixed cast. In one episode Depp and the other white guy were talking about racial issues and one said, "don't get me wrong, I get up in the morning every day and look in the mirror and think 'thank God I'm white.'" I thought 'that's not true. We don't think about our skin color at all.'
That's when one piece of the puzzle clicked into place. We white people don't have to think about our skin color. We can be dirt poor and travel all over this country and as long as we stay out of a few neighborhoods we don't have to think about being white. Non-whites, no matter how wealthy they are, seem always to have it in the back of their minds, and I suppose it colors their thoughts a bit. It's as if there's an extra burden they are carrying that white people don't have to carry.
I used to think this was the main difference but I don't know that. I still think it's a major difference.
