In polite conversation, a friend was talking about how things were back in the good old days when things were more straightforward.

My immediate response before would have been to point out how "the good old days" probably didn't exist, since I believe that we are more in a process of evolving than devolving.

My response this time had a sister of "and good old days to who?"

As I have been plenty guilty of in the past, this guy seemed to be working under the assumption that he would be in the same upper-middle class regardless of what age he landed in. His assumption of "good" appeared to be based on giving ease to that class.

When pressed he made an argument that the era would create ease for people of all classes. An important point that I didn't get to was how that would not be the focus of all the different classes. You probably don't give shit if life is more straightforward if you are a slave!

I just finished reading Beverly Daniel Tatum's book, Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria

I found her perspectives very interesting and insightful, including that she answered the title question in a very different way than I had expected.

Something that has been getting under my skin is my response to her assumption that alleviating racism is important for Whites as well as Blacks. (Again, something that I am hesitant to express my feelings about) I personally feel pretty unaffected by racism when I am not actively seeking enlightenment (for myself and others) about it.

Its something that I would like to believe, but is it true?

One way in which it does benefit me is to give me a broader picture of the world. While our own drama is always what is closest to us, getting a sense of being smaller is useful for not drowning in it.

Being bipolar is the majority of my drama of late. Its a very big deal. I could die if it wasn't handled well. And, that doesn't make me different than a lot of other people. People suffer and die all the time.

There's a lot about race and racism that I'm not sure about. How much activism do I want to have? How can I best contribute to making the world a fairer place?

One thing I can do is influence my child. He's growing up in a predominately white/asian school. Although unlike my experience in a similar scenario, almost all of his teachers have been people of color, with many of them being African American.

I was thinking that this was good for his racial world picture, to have people of color being in roles of power. Then someone mentioned about how peer group is important, and I do wonder if that overshadows the teacher roles by a lot.

One thing that I have put some investment into is buying books with people of color. I found these great fairy tales done with Blacks as the primary characters. After looking at these books, the regular Disney books are blindingly white.

I also ordered some other Amazon books that popped up regarding people of color. Something I've learned from my reading is that for dealing with racism, a White person actually needs to become more aware of skin color, not less. One of the books I ordered is "The Skin You Live In." A book all about skin color. I would never have thought to consider this! But I imagine now, in a world where I was someone of color, I would be extremely aware of color, and this book would be refreshing for me.