Rainbow

RAINBOW

Lately, newspapers and magazines have been full of comments about prejudice and I have been thinking to myself what makes people put aside, or despise, what doesn’t fit their narrow minds.
Because that’s all prejudice is, the inability to live in harmony with what is different.

Like the mythological character of Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection, and could never see the world or the love around him, those that host prejudice in their hearts fail to appreciate the differences, fail to look at this old world of ours from a different perspective, and miss the learning that they could get from the simple act of listening.

I remember that once I apologized to someone for speaking badly his language and I got the answer – Don’t apologize, just consider that you understand one language more than I do. Yes, knowing something extra is important and being able to recognize that extra knowledge people have is even more valuable.

So, if someone is different in any way, just think about the reasons for that difference and what they mean in terms of culture, life experience or learning.

Someone is a different race, a different skin color? That means a different set of values, a different knowledge that kept his ancestors alive in another corner of the world. There is something to learn from his tradition.

Someone has a different religion? That means new ways of worshipping and a different faith, but there’s still God under the differences. Does it matter if you bow or kneel, if it’s Christ or Buddha? Both are teaching about love, personal growing and living life with respect for yourself and others.

There are several different ways to be different and people tend to have prejudice on a different skin color. But has anyone ever considered that under the skin we all are bloody red? Skin is nothing more than a shelter, a gown that keeps us together. Does it make sense to have prejudice about someone because he dresses in red or black instead of white?

I live in a multicultural country where colonization, with all its mistakes, couldn’t avoid interracial relationships and they have been flourishing there since the 16th century. There is today a wide range of skin colors, more like the palette of an artist and no race can anymore brag about being pure.

Let’s face it, after four centuries we are all mixed, and for sure the blackest of black citizens had some distant relative that was totally white, and the blondest beauty surely had an Indian or an African great grandmother in her past.

So what? We are different! But the guy with a black skin has only one difference from me. His skin. He has the same feelings and the same needs. He faces the same struggle for life, has a family just like mine and the same red blood running in his veins. His tears fall down when he gets hurt and his lips open up in a smile when the sun warms his skin. Too many points in common will make that one little difference really unimportant.

I have friends of all colors, all tones, all races, all religions, all languages. I learn from them and open my mind and my heart to let them learn from me. We are all similar and at the same time we are all different and that what makes for the beauty in the world.

From them I learned that people have no color.

They will be golden, as the sun in summertime, when they share a laugh and a wink of complicity.

They will be silvery in the nights they come to rescue someone from their problems and deepest sorrows.

They will be blue when they stand by others saying a last prayer for a loved one.

They will be the color of the rain when there are tears falling from their eyes.

And when the white light hurts my eyes and reflects into my tear drops, I look further and discover that people are the color of the rainbow, building a path for hope after every storm.

And if you ask me the color of my friends I will tell you that they all have only one color.

The color of friendship.