May the peace of the Lord be with you for stepping in here. I used to be a racist in the past. I hate white men. But a simple experience with a white dude converted me. Then I realize that I am the one hurting myself for all hate I habour. Love will not change white to black or otherwise, but it wont enrich your mind with negative energy.

Mind sharing your experience with the white man?

Well the white man was an American engineer working to install massive newsprint machine for the punch newspaper. It was 10 years ago. I was much younger and working part time as newspaper insertionist at the press. I have read books projecting the African experience and I have 'indoctrinated' myself that white man is bad...

So it was not hard for me to hate the American, when other young folks fondly call him AMERICAN. Each time our path cross, each time I snub him and throw my face somewhere. Then One day again, I was climbing the stairs from underground and we met again and he greeted me.

Next time we met again, I was the first to greet him. He did not answer. I do not really like that, but I felt that I am the problem, what has an innocent man in his positive course of life did to deserve my hate, all because of my race stuff? From that I train myself to seperate issue from people.

All I can say is, my experience may not be profound enough to change the world. I can't change the world but myself, then my change can reach the world and create a 'butterfly-effect' in others. Thanks and Goodluck.

dats all ?
wonder why I get the feeling theres more to the story than u reveal? seeing as u visualise butterflies and all. .

Goodluck & Pray for me cos the point i'm at now, I can......

Gudiza: dats all ?
wonder why I get the feeling theres more to the story than u reveal? seeing as u visualise butterflies and all. .

Goodluck & Pray for me cos the point i'm at now, I can......

There is not much to the story than that, I have read some books that fuel my hate as a kid such as weep not child, I could not but feel for the characters in the book: Njoroge, Jomo Kenyatta, the mau-mau Mr. Howard and Boro family an the picture was so true to me, like it happen to me. Well Ngugi Wa thiongo is my childhood best novel, I love the author really.

I read Tell freedom By Peter Abrahams and watch the story of Mandela, I wonder what the meaning of "Apartheid is a crime against humanity" mean when it is scribbled on all walls up there in our classroom, and also, books like the Boy slave and the return of Shettima really thrill me, then I read homecoming by Ngugi wa thiongo, after secondary school.

I was just ready to blow from the pent up energy, I felt the story should not just end like that (messianic complex) and all the slave story that I read make me wanna...ahgr.

I refuse the white man's God, (thank God I was a skeptic-atheist at the time, my family do call me unbeliever then. They will say, it is God that created you now. (I don't want to share my response to that because of kids reading this, I am in God now but it may lead them astray). I thought I created myself.

Somehow, I believe the Yoruba Creator is better and in order to find my ancestors' God, I started by finding meaning to the word Olodumare, the Yoruba name for the creator, I believe I found it, and that's how I got hooked to history. all the story I intended to use to tell freedom was like what Yemiton.com is all about now, Hate for the white man.

The American man's snubbing me make me tell myself, "I am such a fool, if this oyinbo man outsmart me just like that." I was angry. Then to pacify my angst, what if he's not white? I will surely greet him as an older person. I now said, but the man is older than me, (he was) he might be more experienced (he was), I may be insolent then (I was, I don't like other races then). Then why am I "over-equating" myself with him through hate, anger and race? how has he wronged me in person? If he is a black man and is my boss, is this how I will still be behaving?

So I think about it that there is seniority in this world, it has nothing to do with race. It is there in birth and what we do as humans and racism and conspiracy theory should not be the ready answer wherever we feel outperformed. Rather, we should be ready to learn from whoever had master the world better than we do at the present. We can even employ people More better in performance than us.

It may not be easy to swallow, but we can not jump ahead of others from somewhere without precedence, and why invent a new precedence when the world have a lot of it? I mean we can learn from others mistakes, so we can also learn from others success stories, it does not make us slaves.

Ok then. Slightly clearer to me now. But it you were to examine our society well, you will realize that racism and a monochromic form of apartheid exists. So take each individual on his/ her own merits/ demerits.

drollster: Ok then. Slightly clearer to me now. But it you were to examine our society well, you will realize that racism and a monochromic form of apartheid exists. So take each individual on his/ her own merits/ demerits.

You are right, absolutely. People harbour various forms of prejudice, and it seems everyone is 'right' or 'guilty' where they are coming from. Why I say I can't change the world earlier is this, you can never eraze the wrong word from the dictionary because you don't like it, but you can always say how you feel about it, that might encourage others. A lot of people have made up their mind already, but there can still be a bit of butterfly influence.