"Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to crash into each other....." I took this from the movie crash which i watched over the weekend. I think it was a great movie and it got me thinking. It deals with color and mostly misunderstanding. Misunderstanding...this horrible thing that messes us up so many times...well at least me. Just the other day some friends of mine and I were talking bout how its in our minds that we're black in a european country. As much as i dont like to think that i do it, everytime someone looks twice at me, I go off this tangent thinking..."its because of my colour"...i catch myself thinking that even when a dog barks at me and it didnt bark at the next person. Its all a big misunderstanding...at least i would like to now think so. See, we all have stereotypes. If you are a certain color, you apparently have certain traits. Even if you are all the same color, then something else like tribe judges what type of person you are and in kenya, it goes as far as judging by the area you live in. If you live in Runda, Muthaiga, etc, you'll be judged as a spoilt brat who doesnt know a thing about life, whereas if you live in kariobangi, mathare, you're apparently hard core and all other labels we put on ourselves. Not many people actually think of individuals. I was talking to someone the other day...he comes from buruburu, i live in nyari. He went off saying how i have no idea what poverty is, i have never seen it, but he knows, he lives with it. I had tears of frustration in my eyes as a result. Oh and did i mention how he thinks that there is no poverty in rural kenya....? He's already painted this picture of me...sitting in a chauffer driven car with tinted windows to school, back home, go shopping in the malls, go on holiday to whitesands. Its funny how wrong he is. I guess it also has to do alot with being interested. I've been to places where people are actually dying of hunger...yes in rural kenya!!! I've been to the slums, I've done community work. Thing is, he justifies himself by saying he sees poverty everyday...so??? So now that you see it every day, you're not doing anything about it, how on earth does that help anybody?? Anyway, i just totally went off in a different direction there. Back to my post! All these filters that we have and all the stereotypes do nothing but harm. We need to take people as just that....people, whether you're black, yellow, whatever! You're a person. I like how spicebear wrote about all this in relation to the tragedy in the states and she ended her post with the song we sang as children how god loves all the little children of all colors....i think thats a touching song. If we can search ourselves to find that tolerance to live at peace and in harmony with each other. To not think that this or that happened ..."because i'm black", not hold on to our purses extra tight when you see a certain person from a certain area. I know its hard, I know its hard to judge when to draw the line, but maybe we put too much on things that dont even exsist.