Any society that obsessively focuses on "race" issues in its news media and its entertainment media gives no one the choice of being color blind....but it gives those on the bottom of the pecking order the least choice of all. No surprise about that! It was ever so.

The only place I've been (so far) where I detected no trace of race prejudice was Cuba, where you have a population that is mostly composed of Latins and Caribbean Blacks, a trace of Amerindians, some Europeans of one sort or another, and a lot of mixed blood people by now. My experience there was limited to the people I was around, of course, so I can't speak for the whole society...I can only say that my impression was that people there were not inclined at all to make race an issue or a problem in their dealings with one another.

They did have gender issues. The women were quite militant in general about combating what they see as the oldtime Latino sexist attitudes on the part of some men toward women. Their revolution greatly encouraged equality of races and genders, and it certainly has had an effect in radicalizing about the last 3 generations of Cuban women to assert themselves.

They did not appear to have race issues. They did not appear to be at all worried about race issues, and that was a good sign as far as I was concerned. It indicates to me that the powerful in that society are not fomenting race issues in any way.

Trinidad was an interesting case also, because it's basically a 3-part society racially: the majority of people are about a 50/50 split between Black and East Indian, while there is a smaller White community mixed in too. It's also a 3-part society religiously, between Hindu/Christian/Muslim...all about equally strong communities. The 3 communities tend to get along well for the most part, but....and this is a BIG but....NOT during political campaigns! At those times the politicians start playing off one group against another and fomenting much bitter division and hostility...and it leads to a certain amount of violent crime, including kidnappings (for hefty ransoms) and murders.

It is strictly the damned politicians in Trinidad who have created the racial problems, as far as I can see, and they did it by raising racial issues frivolously and cynically in order to manipulate voters.

There is a great deal of intermarriage between racial groups in both Cuba and Trinidad...a positive sign of their ability to get along well with one another...if those in power leave them alone to live in peace with one another.

What I am saying, in a roundabout way, is that American politicians, in their efforts to manipulate voters and to attack their opponents, have again and again stirred the pot of resentment and used racial issues to try to discredit one another. They have deliberately poked the hornet's nest and thrown the match in the gasoline, expecting to profit in some way from the ensuing controversy.

In so doing, they have caused a great deal of harm to relations between the races, while pretending to be doing it for the most laudable of reasons...or even while believing they are doing it for the most laudable of reasons. They have helped put salt in old wounds, and caused new wounds that will last for generations.

It's the old "divide and conquer" technique, in my opinion.