Watch Video And See How People From Around The World Respond To “Black”

by Benson Agoha | Life

* `People Of Colour' - Aren't You One?

As a young African, I was privileged to work for in a multi-racial environment where you got the chance to learn more about other people and their cultures.

In recent days, I have been privileged to meet someone who appears unable to get over those horrible scars from histories of yester-years.

She tells me, for example that, her name originated from a people grouped as having been sold into slavery and therefore `lost their culture'.

And it wouldn't help, indeed she wouldn't listen, when I tried to explain that many of the human race have already lost some or all of the cultures for which their ancestors were known.

Apparently, the word Cultural diffusion means nothing. And she is `very educated.'

Cultural diffussion isn't all bad because, although it has increased with advanced communication, transportation and technology, people do get a chance to try foreign cultures and copy of them if they so wish.

The mixing of world cultures through different ethnicity, religions and nationalities has led to intermarriages that has increased the population of many mixed-race people - often, more beautiful, better looking too.

But in a world that desperately still searches for a common ground to anchor the search for the elusive `global harmony', it is shocking how many people, described as `people of colour' view themselves - especially when described as `black'.

In America, you are described as a `person of colour' if you are not white.  Effectively, you either fit into one or the other. Never-mind that the word `black', like its `white' counterpart are actual misnomers. Hopefully this `one' or the other' won't be parallels.

In Britain, many interviewers who understand this, though still compelled to deal with the terms being in visible in print in job application and other official forms, find a way to avoid it when requiring an applicant to identify how he is `introduced or described.'

When last did you have a chance to listen to a Police officer, he would most probably have required you to help him out by telling him how you are described.

They point at a list and ask you which of them you are familiar as your description.

The thing is neither `black' nor `white' means what we are told they mean. For how many people actually look like the `white colour' as we know it? And isn't `white' a colour?

So when you are described as a person of colour, everyone is indeed one.

But watch this video, posted by BuzzFeed two days ago, and see how some people react when they are describe as `black'.

When next you paint the `people of colour' don't leave out the `white colour' because it is one.