Is Racism still an issue in the United States?

[Oki-Des]

Thank you for your kind words. I wanted to mention another story in Japan that taught me a valuable lesson. I was walking past a bus stop where a bus had just stopped and an ederly Japanese woman was getting off the bus. When our eyes connected she had this horrible scowel on her face and I was quick to assume she hated me because I was an American. Instead of reacting crudely I smiled at her with the biggest smile my face could make. I was surprised to see her wrinkled face contort into a smile back at me, then her face went back to what happened to be a natural frown. I was the one that was too quick to assume she was racist, when in fact it was my own ignorace and being too quick to judge that gave me a bad feeling. She was not racist, but simply an elderly woman who smiled back at me when I smiled at her. I realized that I should never judge a situation by my first thoughts and people can misconstrue situations that were completely incorrect. Life can teach us a lot if we are willing to be open and test ourselves in a variety of situations and sometimes we learn first hand that we are not always right.

[j3374]

Thank you for your kind words. I wanted to mention another story in Japan that taught me a valuable lesson. I was walking past a bus stop where a bus had just stopped and an ederly Japanese woman was getting off the bus. When our eyes connected she had this horrible scowel on her face and I was quick to assume she hated me because I was an American. Instead of reacting crudely I smiled at her with the biggest smile my face could make. I was surprised to see her wrinkled face contort into a smile back at me, then her face went back to what happened to be a natural frown. I was the one that was too quick to assume she was racist, when in fact it was my own ignorace and being too quick to judge that gave me a bad feeling. She was not racist, but simply an elderly woman who smiled back at me when I smiled at her. I realized that I should never judge a situation by my first thoughts and people can misconstrue situations that were completely incorrect. Life can teach us a lot if we are willing to be open and test ourselves in a variety of situations and sometimes we learn first hand that we are not always right.

Cool story, Oki- hey... I just understood the meaning of your screen name! LOL. Ookii Desu! "am big", translated into English. I had to ask my girlfriend (born and raised in Japan) how the spelling would be exactly in English. I only speak broken Japanese, and my reading/writing is poor. One of the mods could change the spelling if you wanted it spelled perfectly (so I've read). I was thinking about changing mine to a Japanese screen name too.

Oh, I was originally going to say that you seem really introspective and observant of people. I can relate to that tendency.