No, not directly. I refuse to allow it to, I choose to ignore ignorance, but I think that racism affects everyone's life indirectly.

It did when I was little. I looked more like the black side of the family then- now I look more like the Jewish side. In the second grade I had a teacher who segregated the class blacks on one side, whites on the other. I was on the black side. We all read "Dick and Jane" books, but the white kids got to read the more advanced books where they had adventures, and us black kids had to read the simple ones, where they just played ball with spot. At that time I was already reading fantasy novels on my own, so I was way beyond that level- but because I was black in her eyes, I must have been a poor reader. Then she met my mother. My VERY white mother. The next day my seat was moved to the other side of the class, and my reading level suddenly jumped. Imagine that.

Uhmmm... yes. I am Rromani. That pretty much guarantees a yes. I have been assaulted physically, of course verbally harassed, I have been turned down for jobs, I have been "tailed" in stores, I have been harassed by neighbors, I have had trouble getting housing, etc., and so on, and so forth. I have been told that I do not exist, Hitler should have killed all of us and it is too bad he missed part of my family (Gypsies were part of the Final Solution), the only good Gypsy is a dead one, we are all thieves, and so forth and so on. Normal life for a Rromani who refuses to lie. Racism against other people has affected me... I watch what other people go through and support my friends. My friends (Gadje) have gone through it. Basically, the same sort of thing I have gone through to varying degrees. I am talking about bigotry of all kinds, from "race" to ethnicity to sexual orientation to religion. Who has not been directly impacted by racism? Some minorities are hated more than others. Rromani are really hated. However, Whites are the majority and THEY get it too. Nobody is exempt and anyone who claims that any race is exempt has blinders over their eyes. Oh, with minorities like the Rromani, the term is not racism because we are not deemed a race. That way the hate crime statutes do not apply to us. We are an "ethnicity"... we are a genetic people whose "Rromness" (I just made that up) is carried on our genome. I usually reference "bigotry" to cover all of us.

Yes, I work with a number of wonderful people from India. As gentle and intelligent as they are, their prejudices are not conducive to easy business, always. They have a prejudice for the lighter-skinned Indians who are typically from the northern part of the sub-continent. The darker-skinned people, usually from south of Hyderabad, are treated as second-class citizens, or worse, and not respected at all in business meetings anywhere near the extent of the light-skinned folks, who for all intents and purposes, view themselves as a different race. . They are all very nice people to work with, and I cannot understand the reasons for the prejudice, but it extends outside the workplace even into mate preferences. Example: a dark-skinned male is married to a dark-skinned female but is considering making overtures to a lighter skinned female because of her skin color (mostly) and other traits he considers desirable and attractive. I would feel much more comfortable if these preferences were absent.

Yes, I am a white guy...who speaks Mandarin...as soon as a lot of chinese people figure out that I can understand them they won't talk much.

Yes, because I am white and I can speak chinese..People have said some pretty insulting things about that...especially demeaning to the chinese...