Nine

I have the privilege to be a suburban white male in the United States. Since I am white, I am reminded of my skin color perhaps once a day, if that. If I were a different race, let's just say dark-skinned, then I might be reminded of my skin color maybe once every 30 minutes or so, on average.

Race is a man-made social construct, based roughly on one's proximity to the equator, shown here in this image.

The closer to the equator, the darker the skin. This is an evolutionary adjustment for survival, for vitamin D and sensitivity to sunlight. 

I have vague to no stories that deal with race.

In Tim Wise's video, "White like Me", Wise explains that as a white minority in a black majority neighborhood, he found many interesting things about race. There is a large difference between how much racism still exists and how much race still appears to exist on the media. Wise mentions how on almost every news network after Obama's victory in the presidential election, newscasters were preaching how we as a country have witnessed the end of racism because we have voted a black president in. The truth is racism is just a prevalent, but has switched from more explicit to more implicit. Given the fact that we are indeed many steps ahead of where we were 50 years ago, we cannot keep pretending that this issue is nonexistent.

In class, I took an exam online to see if I was implicitly racist. I was found to have a moderate favor for European whites. Although my implicit racism will continue to be a force in my mind, I will continue to strive for both equity and equality for all "races".