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In this Ted Talk, Angélica Dass explains how so many people's fist and lasting impressions come from the color of one's skin. She made a project called Humanae, where she took photographs of all different people with various skin tones, races, and it just showed that there can't be just four colors. She took portraits of more than 3,000 people! It personally opened my eyes up to see that there really are so many different kinds of people out there. People tend to just group different people's skin into black, yellow, red, and white categories. Instead if immediately placing someone into one of these, why not just let them decide for themselves? This relates to Alex Dang's slam poetry where he felt stereotyped and put into a category. He just wanted to be himself and look the way he does without being stereotyped. Angélica's project Humanae grew and inspired many people. It is beautiful to see such diversity and know that everyone is different. She hopes that this discrimination no longer will exist because of the first impression of someone and their skin. Everyone is different, and I hope that people that don't, will start to understand so our country can move forwards with these race-related issues.

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Angélica Dass: The beauty of human skin in every color

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Angélica Dass's photography challenges how we think about skin color and ethnic identity. In this personal talk, hear about the inspiration behind her portrait project, Humanæ, and her pursuit to document humanity's true colors rather than the untrue white, red, black and yellow associated with race.

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Too Many Americans Think Patriotism Means Racism and Xenophobia

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Too Many Americans Think Patriotism Means Racism and Xenophobia

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This article talks about after 9/11 and the violence that happened within certain races. Patriotism was huge and increased greatly right after the horrible incident, but racism also increased against South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and Arab Americans. We are so quick to associate others with people of the same race who have done awful things. I personally have great respect for Muslims and the Islamic religion. It is a very strict, but I admire this. The only people that I would feel resentment towards are the radical Muslims, whose main goal is to take out as many Americans as possible. These people do exist, but there is always another side to things. There are white supremacists who want to kill these different groups of people because they consider them to be inferior and want them to "go back to their country". This article also shows how people recently have thought that having pride for your county, patriotism, is the same as racism. This has come up especially recently with President Trump, but they’re not the same thing! It's hard to want the president to improve the U.S. or express love for you country, especially today, without people making accusations.

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In the short videos that The Washington Post put together, I was able to see a lot of different perspectives on the n-word. Some African Americans believe that it's okay for them to use, but nobody else. Other African Americans don't think the word should be used at all. What is hard about banning a word is that it's quite literally impossible to do, and people will always break rules. There's no way to just take a word away and remove it from everybody’s lexicon. It's such a normal part of some peoples lives, and they use it in their everyday vocabulary. In today's music, this word is constantly used many rap artists. People listen to this and go along with the words and it may make these listeners think that it's okay to use this word. They get used to it due to the fact that they hear it so often. Some think that people use it to lessen the power of it, and that it should just not be a big deal. Older generations thought that it was used entirely too much and that it's hurtful word. One stated that anybody who uses it doesn't respect themselves or their family. I personally don't think it should be used. It's so easy to just avoid single word! It makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and even some African Americans don't like it when others of their race use it. Despite what I desire, this word will never go away, but hopefully people have respect for others when it comes to this issue.

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America is divided on whom to blame for black Americans' challenges in getting ahead 

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America is divided on whom to blame for black Americans' challenges in getting ahead 

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Eugene Scott, an African American reporter for the Washington Post, stated that one's view on the state of racism in the United States doesn’t just depend on your race, but also deals with the two major political parties. This affects how the politicians appeal to the public, and try to persuade different groups to support them. Over 50 years after the civil rights movement, racism is still very existent in America. Americans are increasingly wanting to address racial inequality because of the fact that it is still a problem even after all this time. About 61% of americans say that the country needs to keep making changes to give black Americans the same rights as white Americans, and 35% said that these changes have already been made. Personally, I believe that a lot of the racism and discrimination comes from the people. Don't get me wrong, laws are extremely important and there we need to have all laws necessary for equal rights within races, but people break laws. People don’t follow rules. This is what really needs to be looked at. Equal treatment, no matter the race, is important in going forward, but there have been cases showing unequal sentences with similar crimes between races. Unequal or unfair treatment is why racism is still here, and I think that we're just going sideways as a country. Many think that we’re moving forward because of our “ability to change” but on the other hand, there are a lot that agree that we're not due to the “reliance on long-standing principles”. Be a Huck Finn! He knew the wrongness and cruelty of it all and was able to see though these lasting rules. Adapt to the change and don't get stuck where everyone else is.

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Alex Dang explains what it is like to be constantly stereotyped and feel lesser than others. He said that it's not his choice to tell people “what kind of Asian he is”, or his actual race. It's the people who judge and put them into a category based on little knowledge. We are so quick to assume things and group people with similar, but not the same, characteristics into one. Alex explains that people are so stereotypical and it makes him feel shame to be seen this way. He also briefly mentions media and how doesn’t portray the various races enough. It made him, as a little kid, confused and different than every other person. I believe that it is important to display the different races on TV, and show pride in our diverse country. Wanting to know someone's heritage is perfectly okay, but how you go about it is what is important.

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Most Americans Think Their Own Group Faces Discrimination

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Most Americans Think Their Own Group Faces Discrimination

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Joe Neel has went through an experiment and found that most ethnic identity and racial groups believe that discriminations exists against their group. Over half of whites, 55%, believe that they’re discriminated against today. I recently came across a post online about someone who was being extremely discriminatory and making fun of the poor white people of rural southern states. I never really thought about white people being discriminated against, but seeing that and the statistic in the article opened my eyes to see that it does exist. It's still racism. Half of black people feel racial discrimination while interacting with police, and just less than half feel this when trying to rent or buy a house. These numbers show that a lot of people, from different races feel that they're discriminated against. You might think, why, if so many feel this way and have felt this way for so long, aren't we moving forward? Most of the black people in this experiment believed that the bigger problem is the discrimination coming from individual people. The problem with racism and most issues like this is the fact that people won't change. People will always judge and do awful things, it's just how we are. Seeing that so many of these people feel this way in such simple situations is sad. Nobody should have to worry about this constant cruelty! Race shouldn’t matter in these everyday things. We as a country need to stop stereotyping and just understand that yes, where you come from is important, but the color of your skin doesn’t mean anything compared to what’s inside. Seeing the statistics from this article just again proves that we're still going sideways, and I don't think that this issue will ever fully come to an end.

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At a high school in Jena, Louisiana, a black student wanted to sit under a tree, labeled the “white tree” because only white students were known to hang around there. The student and some other African American friends went there to sit and talk to other white students, but the next day, two nooses were put on the tree. This directly relates to the time between reconstruction and the end of WWII when 250+ people were hung in Louisiana— most of them being African Americans. Yes, it was good that were were able to move forward through that time, and see the awfulness in it all, but even still people are referencing it in cruel ways. This doesn’t help the progress that is hoped to happen.

At that same school, a few months after the incident, a white student was beat to the point where he was unconscious by a group of black students who were arrested. It was said that they could potentially have gone to jail for 75 years due to their charges. The changes were lessened, but still, a 16 year old was convicted by a jury that was all white. He could've seen 22 years in a state prison for adults, but the case blew up and he was released on bail after 10 months. After this, is had been agreed to try him as a juvenile. This example of the unfair treatment in the American justice system builds on the article by Eugene Scott. Different people can be hurt by others in different ways, but some receive worse consequences than others. Outcomes shouldn't depend on race, especially in the judicial system.

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Toni Morrison's reaction to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was very conflicting. She read it over and over, and was able to analyze different themes and motifs in the book. Morrison talked about the use of the n-word, and explained that it would’ve been so much better of it was talked about intellectually before going into it. It was one of the pieces of the book that caused discomfort for her. It relates to "The N-Word" video and how some black people even felt uncomfortable when other black people use it. She also talked about how Huck sees a lot of death throughout the novel, and goes through a lot of hard things without a fatherly figure, someone to care and look after him. When Huck met Jim, all of these things were met. Jim was a big part in Huck being able to live without all of this fear, he finally had someone, but it was also sad. Huck couldn't just be Jim's friend in their race-inflected society. This shows how bad the racism was back them, and how we have made great improvements that deal with slavery and major laws restricting African Americans. In U.S. History, we learned about after the Civil War, and after the abolishment of slavery. There were still major issues. African Americans couldn't just find jobs, and many went back to being a slave, without the label of being a slave. Sharecropping was big in farms, and was an unfair was of making the African Americans dependent on the farms and plantations where they worked. She talks about how Jim was an exact contradiction to the awful stereotypes that blacks had in literature of the nineteenth-century. He was painted as someone who was just a good, caring man.

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Feeling Like A Tourist: Being Black In New England

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Feeling Like A Tourist: Being Black In New England

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Being a black woman living in northern New Hampshire isn't easy for Debra Nunnally Beaupre. She is a true New Englander, born in Massachusetts, and even has an accent! The hard thing for living where she does is the fact that it's so small, and she is quite literally one of the only black people there. Beaupre mentioned that a lot people living there haven't ever known someone of color, which is sad. I understand that northeastern states like New Hampshire can't really help who lives there. It's one of the least diverse states. You'll see who you'll see, know who you'll know, and a majority of those people will be caucasian. Despite this lack of diversity, people don't have the right to discriminate against the extremely small minorities. They have the same right to be there as anyone else. Yet, Beaupre still deals with racism to the point where she just avoids situations with the potential of any type of racism involved. A big part in moving forward with lessening the racism that occurs is just making everyone feel accepted for who they are. Everyone has their differences, but these things are what make us unique! This relates to the idea of the U.S. being a melting pot of a myriad of cultures and ethnicities all combined into one. Although New England isn't the most diverse place when it come to race and culture, we can still be accepting of those who are different in that sense so people like Beaupre don't have to, at times, live in fear.

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I am a New Englander, born and bred, with the accent to prove it. Originally from Massachusetts, I now live in northern New Hampshire, in an area popular with vacationers. However, as a black woman in an overwhelmingly white state, there are times when I feel like a tourist.

Many residents here have never known a person of color. Some want to; others do not. Problem is, when I leave my own small town, it's impossible to know which type I will encounter.

For example, I am an avid reader who supports independent bookstores when traveling. Bookshop employees are characteristically welcoming. Maybe voracious reading and open-mindedness go hand in hand.

But if I grab coffee and a snack nearby, I have often found myself ignored, or worse. Once, in a doughnut shop, a man flicked a lit cigarette at me when I was visibly pregnant and alone. Another customer witnessed it and froze. Full of righteous indignation, I jumped in my pickup and searched for a police officer, but couldn't find one.

Since then, I've used drive-thru windows when I travel. I've trained myself to be cautious and calculating.

I think racism is like a chronic condition that can be treated, but not cured. It flares up unexpectedly. After a while, though, it manages you - which is why it's so damaging.

Sometimes I think if I lived down South, life might be easier. I've visited places there where racial lines are delineated - where blacks live in certain parts of town, and whites in others.

Sometimes I think if I lived down South, life might be easier. I've visited places there where racial lines are delineated - where blacks live in certain parts of town, and whites in others.

I know many people find this kind of modern segregation very troubling. But I can see how it might appeal to a black person. I could do all the things I do now - cart the kids around, go to a show, shop and entertain - with one difference: There would be so many brown faces that mine would blend in.

But in order to do that, I would have to leave all that is familiar, relinquish all that makes me who I am. All that would remain would be my accent.

I am not trying to be a Rosa, a Martin or a Barack. I am just trying to raise a family, pursue a little happiness, and live peacefully with my neighbors. And until we all have that, none of us can say that we are truly free.
Commentator Debra Nunnally Beaupre writes the TeacherMother blog.

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Feeling Like A Tourist: Being Black In New England

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I am a New Englander, born and bred, with the accent to prove it. Originally from Massachusetts, I now live in northern New Hampshire, in an area popular with vacationers. However, as a black woman in an overwhelmingly white state, there are times when I feel like a tourist.

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The key reason why racism remains alive and well in America

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The key reason why racism remains alive and well in America

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In this article written by Colbert I. King, a lot of things that show why racism is forward and has gone down are addressed. It mentioned amendments 13-15, the Civil Rights Act of 1954, and many other regulations put into place in attempt to lessen the racism that occurred back then. These things were huge in the progression to stop slavery, but it unfortunately still is quite a large issue today. King stated that racism won't end unless we hit the root of the cause. This root of racism is what caused the South to leave the Union, the Klu Klux Klan to rise up, the awful segregation of races, and discrimination in many areas. Many people just didn't understand that what was happening then, was wrong. It was socially acceptable to, for example, own a slave. Abolishing these things was very essential in making positive advancements in this subject, but the root just hasn't been hit yet. I talked with one of my teachers about the subject of racism, and they said that the only real way to end it is for every single person to have conversation, build relationships, and just understand all the people of different ethnicities. This is obviously impossible, and the root of current racism can never really be put out. Not everybody is like Huck Finn, who opened up to a black person, which was 100% not accepted at the time. Even though today it is fine to acquaint yourself with whomever you please, racism still occurs. I do wish that more Huck Finns existed in the world. He was able to see past the skin, past the exterior and just see the human inside. Every single person is just another consciousness within a body. Not everyone can see that, which keeps racism alive today.

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In our faltering efforts to deal with race in this country, a great deal of time is devoted to responding to symptoms rather than root causes. That may help explain why racism keeps repeating itself.

Exhibit One is the recurring cases of racism at colleges.

In February 2013, Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was suspended by Washington University in St. Louis after the fraternity's pledges were accused of singing racial slurs to African American students.

Last November, the University of Connecticut suspended Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity after a confrontation with members of the historically black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in which AKAs were called racially and sexually charged epithets.

This year in March, a University of Maryland student resigned from Kappa Sigma fraternity after being suspended for sending an e-mail containing racially and sexually suggestive language about African American, Indian and Asian women.

Also this year, disciplinary action was taken against members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the University of Oklahoma who participated in a racist chant, caught on video, about lynching African Americans.

We have not seen the end of racist fraternity and sorority actions on college campuses.

That's because the actions taken in response to these incidents by well-meaning universities were directed at symptoms. Epithets, chants and derogatory language about African Americans are indicators of an underlying problem within the offending white students, namely an antagonism against blacks based upon feelings of white superiority. With suspensions and expulsions, the college community rids itself of a particular manifestation but not the underlying problem, which is racial prejudice.

The United States has been treating evidence of racism, and not the causes, since the Civil War.

Slavery; "separate but equal"; segregated pools, buses, trains and water fountains; workplace and housing discrimination; and other forms of bias and animus have served as painful barometers of the nation's racial health. They have been, however, treated like the pain that accompanies a broken leg. The effort was to treat or reduce the agonizing symptoms of the break rather than fix it.

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution extended civil and legal protections to former slaves. They eased the pain, but the leg was still broken.

Anti-lynching laws scattered the lynch mobs. But the pain flared up again with beatings, bombings and assassinations.

Our nation responded to racial anguish with a variety of measures: the 1954 Brown school desegregation decision, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and numerous rules and regulations to address those things that caused generations of African Americans - when the shades were drawn - to groan, weep, grit their teeth and swear that their children would not experience the demeaning, disrespectful and immoral treatment that they had to endure.

However, these legal remedies, while addressing the excruciating racial pain, didn't deal with the enduring problem: the racism itself that caused the South to secede from the Union; that led state legislatures and governors to birth Jim Crow laws; that sparked the KKK's reign of terror; and that encouraged school districts and town zoning officials to institutionalize barriers against black citizens in housing, education and employment. And racism is still at it in the 21st century. All you have to do is look at those frat boys cited above to see that it's going strong.

Witness, too, the enactment of laws passed since President Obama's 2008 election to make it harder for African Americans to vote.

And then there is Dylann Roof, the alleged Charleston, S.C., assassin who takes his place among storied anti-black murderers such as James Earl Ray, who killed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; the Klansmen who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four little black girls; and Samuel H. Bowers Jr., the imperial wizard of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who with his KKK brethren murdered three civil rights workers.

Oh, yes, Roof has plenty of company; not necessarily in his homicidal rage but in his ideology. The manifesto that he purportedly wrote is replete with bigoted remarks common to right-wing talk radio and posted on Web sites.

Dylann Roof is this week's manifestation of our racial sickness. But Roof and his ideological forbear President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and those Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers are symptoms of the same problem. Until we get at the root cause, the problem lives on.

Read more from Colbert King's archive.

Read more on this topic:

The Post's View: Words fail in Charleston, but change must follow

Eugene Robinson: America will only end racism when it stops being racist

Alyssa Rosenberg: The long, fraught racial history of American fraternities

Michael Gerson: After Selma, racism persists but the dream lives on, as well

Karen Attiah: Charleston, Dylann Roof, and the racism of millennials

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The key reason why racism remains alive and well in America

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In our faltering efforts to deal with race in this country, a great deal of time is devoted to responding to symptoms rather than root causes. That may help explain why racism keeps repeating itself. Exhibit One is the recurring cases of racism at colleges.