Azizi I'm back too but just for a min. I've already posted you about my anger re racism at another time and I just need to say a little more on this. It hurts it hurts it hurts. Sometimes I just have to grab my throat to stop the sob. Ultimately that's what it's about whether its print, internet, face to face, whatever. It breaks the heart. I find that there is a point where I have to withdraw I am so enraged. It's no good ignoring stuff in the hope it will go away. It doesn't as history shows. Confronting and challenging it wherever it pokes up, like ripping out a bad weed before it kills the garden when it's too late, is my answer. And by the way black is what we have all become who are not 'white' - many Indigenous people are neither 'black' nor 'white' in looks but are black in psychology and the impact historically and in the day to day of racist comments, attitudes etc. ultimately kill the hope of our children from the instant they are born. It's a bit of a platitude to say to develop a thick skin - my people have done that in order to survive and still it hurts. The 'thick skin' response is also a form of denial of racism and how it impacts on many people in this worl. Its not just that we get a bit sulky you know. It puts most of us on the bread line, homeless, uneducated, unemployed, dispossessed in more ways than can be said, dying horrible deaths. It's not afternoon tea. Racism is racism - it is not anything else. Anti-racism is not feminism - it is not communism, it is not left thought. It is something I demand or my fellow human beings make a stand on in order that we are not so continually demeaned as a group. See, here I go again!!! It rips my heart out and it makes me wild! I can never ignore it and I am embarrassing and obnoxious often enough in my attempts to grab it's head and rip it off. I stutter and stammer for words but I will not let anyone get away with it if I can help it. Thick skins I think we have a plenty wouldn't you agree Azizi? It's the heart that is always human. It breaks and breaks. Racism!! If I could just grab hold of it, take it to the river and drown it I would be a happy person. As a famous Oz once said, I luv yoos all, but not some.xx