At five I didn't understand the history or even the psychology behind the word and yet from that moment on I knew I was different, some how unlike everyone else, excluded. He remembers going to the gate of his backyard and calling his friends over to join them. His friends, black, entered the yard. Jack became aware of how uncomfortable his parents were with the presence of his friends among them. He knew he had somehow done something wrong and was sorry.
Bridges go both ways.
So often when we speak about racism or race relations it is as if only one person, only one group is hurt, one group responsible, only one way to solve it. The amalgamation of cultures and traditions in this country is often negated by the lumping of everyone into the white box. As a college student I watched in sympathy as my classmates, young white men and women fought to find a piece of culture for themselves. And, we Unitarian Universalists of color call this cultural appropriation, or Lost Soul Syndrome. They called it a search to find a place to belong, a space of individuality.