hey look, I argue with you and grusse and anyone else on this topic because my intention is that when I think that someone comes across with an entire point of view that is very different from mine, then I submit what I think for the purpose of finding some truth that we can discover together. Now often that doesn't produce good results, but I think it's always worth a try. This time, however, no results were produced because I believe you took nothing I said seriously - and not because you are an arrogant person (I'm not speaking for grusse here, his challenges seem monumental), but because of the very thing I am speaking of that makes it very difficult to close the gap on this issue.
I was once a person who held very similar opinions to you so I have had the benefit of being on the other side of it. When younger, I grew up at a time and place in Canada when there was nobody of colour in my own town save 2 other people, and all my friends were white. I felt like a banana, that is, I was a white person inside but just "happened", as I thought, to be born of yellow skin. Now of course my dear childhood friends and their families accepted me, they did not see "colour". But as I grew older, sometime in my late teens, I saw "colour". I was forced to become aware of my own "colour", by virtue of the fact that I began to realize that there was something inherently different between myself and the white world around me. Fast forward to 2013, decades later: I see the exact same challenges I saw then - even as society here has changed with the influx of immigrants that has changed the composition of peoples in certain places, the attitudes of the white majority are still the same - they did not see colour, they were and still are not aware for the most part of the challenges and discrimination of growing up coloured in a white world means. And when I say "world", I of course don't mean the physical earth: I mean history, I mean power, I mean institutions, I mean way of life. I mean walking into a mall and seeing that all the mannequins are white. I mean Jesus is depicted as a white man when he should look more like Osama Bin Laden. I mean the cosmetic surgeons are giving Asian girls caucasian noses. I mean the Asian girls that are held up as the most beautiful are the ones that look most caucasian - and this from both Asians and Caucasians alike. I mean that the top 10% wealthiest and powerful individuals are white. I mean the presidents of hispanic countries are mostly white and until recently were always white. I mean if you picked up a Playboy you would have 90% white girls. And all this would not actually bother me because I grew up white - except for the fact that I know everything about being white, and have to demonstrate my whiteness at jobs, in social settings, in meeting new people, in conversing with business people, in just about every avenue of life except those strictly defined as "coloured", but white people don't have to demonstrate anything because it is on their standards, and should you as a coloured person fail to demonstrate white behaviour, you will likely be called out on it in one form or another.
Assuming you are not a disabled person, you probably wouldn't think twice about how you got to work on any given day. But if you were disabled, you'd think not just about how you got to work, but how you got up the stairs, how getting to work has been arranged, how you are perceived when you go into a meeting, what people might think of you if you had to manage clients, why you might be called to attend some socials and not others, etc. The disabled person lives in a world created in the image of the non-disabled person. He is faced every day with the discrimination and second guessing. In order for him to function, he must demonstrate as though he was a completely abled person, but the abled person never thought twice about his world. That's a very similar challenge.
While you may see many successful immigrants who have loads of money, I can tell you that IF they made their money in Canada or the United States, they probably worked much harder and with more obstacles to achieve the same level of success as a white person. My immigrant parents came to Canada with what they saved to get plane fare in the 70's, which took them 2 years of saving nothing but for to achieve. They had nothing else. Their success was built on sheer will power and 14 hour days 7 days a week in a grocery store, something the average white Canadian would never do. This is a pretty typical common story for Asian migrants, my parents were not exceptional. The result was owning a home and retiring without a mortgage, and going from poverty to middle class. The moral of the story: the immigrant (unless they started wealthy, and most are not) starts with less assets and less access to institutions and resources than their white counterpart. To achieve the same level of success, they have greater challenges they must face every day and less to do it with.
So to hear a person who belongs to the majority complain about how hard a life they've had it, is to me like listening to a spoiled child. Yes, life is hard and it sucks to be told you're worthless because of your skin colour, and just as bad if you are white as it is if you are black. That's a given. Then to hear those in the majority complain that the coloured person is taking away their opportunities as though it was stolen from them, that's called acting privileged because the playing field is not level, the playing field is and always has been slanted far in favour of those in the majority.
Now I have also had the benefit of visiting other parts of the world where white is not the majority. The situations are quite similar but not exact, but for purposes of this conversation and not to widen the discussion any further, I will say they are the same. A white person trying to live and work in say, China, would have similar challenges.
