Star Wars vs Star Trek in Five Minutes

Written: 1999.07.27
Last revised: 2001.04.30

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character."- Martin Luther King Jr., August 28, 1963

As a member of a visible minority, and one partner in an interracial marriage, I think I have some grounds on which to speak of the issue of racism. Just as you cannot understand love until you've experienced it, you cannot understand racism until you've experienced it first-hand. Unfortunately, I understand racism all too well.

Just below my hairline on the left side, I still bear a scar from a vicious schoolyard racial attack I suffered as a child, at the hands of an adolescent. He wasn't even suspended for trying to bludgeon a small child with a brick, because (as a white teacher explained) he came from a "broken home", which somehow made his behaviour acceptable. The crime was swept under the carpet, but the scar remains. Like an angry white line, it reminds me of the meaning of hate every time I look into a mirror. And in my heart, I still bear scars from many other racist attacks I've suffered throughout my life, including racial slurs from all manner of people and repeated accusations from my wife's German Mennonite relatives that our interracial marriage was "against the will of God". These scars are the reason that I am furious when people who have never suffered from racism try to downplay it, or redefine it to suit their purposes.