"White men can't jump" - and other silly generalisations!

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine had an interesting status message about racism and the how tough it was to be 'black in a white man's world'. Now, I can relate to that to some degree, having lived in quite a white part of England myself. Most of the people I related with were very nice, but every now and then, there was the occasional racial drama, from the work place to social gatherings. I think what I found even more shocking was the fact that even among religious people, the issue of racism remains an issue. Unconsciously, people react to the stereotypes they have in their heads when they know a person comes from a part of the world - and these silly assumptions and generalisations can really drive you nuts.

A person who has chosen to embrace racism, tribalism or generalisation of any kind is someone who has decided to be irrational, illogical, and who has not developed mentally enough to UNDERSTAND that though there have been events and circumstances that indicate people may act in certain ways based on the social and ethno-geographic framework they are born into, human nature, is UNIQUE and DYNAMIC.

So people are SHOCKED to see Africans do not live in trees, that some Asians are tall, that some white folks CAN dance rhythmically, that not every Englishman brawls and drinks alcohol,
not every Russian is mobster, not every Nigerian is into fraud, not every American is fat, not every Chinese man fights Kung Fu, not every German is racist, not every French is romantic, that Blacks are not more 'endowed' than Whites or better sportsmen, Whites are not 'more intelligent' than Blacks, and that the other shades of skin are not more 'this' or 'that'.

Every human is distinct.

It just makes sense to take an individual as just that - an individual - and learn from relating with him/her about their unique traits and characteristics. 

As Facebook tends to be, I have a few 'friends' I don't even know about. A guy buzzed me up from some corner of the global village called Earth and said 'hello'. I was a bit busy, so I said a polite 'hello' back. He said a few lines and when I didn't answer back, the next thing he wrote was, 'hey, can you even speak English?'

Not sure of why he said that, I couldn't help replying:
'Elucidations in contemporary English are not a cerebral quagmire for Africans in the continent's western geopolitical sphere, kapish?'