Raj Malhotra,
College Park, MD.

“Are you the IT guy?” or “Does your family own a 7-eleven?” If I bother to take offense on all these questions and stereotypes of my race I will have countless enemies and no friends. I prefer to take these questions as a conversation starter and get to know the person better. However, I do understand institutional racism where a black person is more likely to be put in jail for possession of marijuana than a white person. Institutional racism is important and needs to be dealt with in different ways, however, this must not be confused with common misunderstandings and lack of knowledge about another culture. I believe plenty of people get asked ignorant questions and get connected with silly stereotypes, but as humans I believe we also have the power of empathy to look beyond the ignorance and try to learn something from each other. The pale blue dot is a wonderful Carl Sagan essay that provides some perspective on our place within the universe and how relatively silly racism is.