I am currently listening to the book Caste about the caste system in America. In the book, the author cites a case study (in discussing how the laws of segregation allow the upper caste to keep power & prohibiting inter-racial marriage) where a court found that a Sicilian woman who was married to a Black man was not in violation of the law because the court deemed her ‘not white’, and therefore allowed to stay married without breaking the law.

As I listened to that line, I immediately thought, “I would be so pissed if I were her that I would not be considered white, and equal to a black man.” It stopped me in my tracks. I put the scenario against being called Latino or Asian & didn’t have at all the same feeling.

So, clearly, I still have work to do to clean up my thoughts around race. I don’t want to believe this – and I acknowledge that the first step in dismantling racist beliefs is acknowledging them. But now what? What’s my next step? How do I get rid of this belief & what do I replace it with?