A little something about nothing

Am I Ignorant??

Saturday night we decided to stay home and have a few drinks. Mark, Jakki (our house guest) and I were there and had invited Lauren and Tre to join us. We started the night with basic topics of discussion, nothing too deep.

That changed. Both Tre and Jakki are black (I say this only to explain the following) and started the topic of how differently white people and black people are raised. Although Jakki and Tre were raised very differently they both felt that most white people were raised with the same view/beliefs when is comes to whites vs blacks. They asked me about my childhood. I replied telling them we were not raised to notice the color of someone's skin, but they type of person they were. I told them it mattered little to me what color/race/religion anyone was, but if they were mean I didn't like them. They chuckled and said that was a correct comment, but the tone they used made me feel like they didn't believe or understand me and thought I was saying that to be polite.

I don't know how to explain it and I do not feel I am ignorant...I am not blind and do realize the different races that exist in the world; however, I do not choose to concentrate on it when having a conversation with someone. When I spoke with Jakki I did not talk to her differently because she was a female or because she was black...I spoke to her like she was Jakki. Is that a difficult concept to understand???

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is I have always felt I am a very accepting person and I've known Tre for a few years, so he should know this, but he is always throwing the black/white issue up. My guess is he is the one who really has the issue with white people and tries to push the topic out there to make us (the white people in the the group) feel like we are being judgmental of him or his race.