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For all of the continued awareness of systemic violence and oppression, there isn't a lot of talk about that psychological toll of racism, at least in white circles and white media.

Antiwhite racism is developing in sections of our cities where individuals - some of whom have French nationality - contemptuously designate French people as gaulois on the pretext they don't share the same religion, color or origins.

I'm not trying to say that it never hurt or that I never felt its sting, but I can honestly say that I never blamed anybody for racism. I have considered it more of a manifestation of humanity's problem rather than my personal problem.

I talk about race a lot. It's been my work ever since I came out of acting school. But it's true that in a way talking about race is a taboo. Because so many of our debates about race have to do not with race but with what we are willing to see, what we will not see and what we don't want to see.

My encounters with racism are sort of second-hand situations where I might be standing around with a group of white friends and someone makes a comment that they wouldn't make at my family reunion.

If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.

I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.

But, on the other hand, I get bored with racism too and recognize that there are still many things to be said about a Black person and a White person loving each other in a racist society.

I'm not going to sit here now and say 'do this,' or 'do that.' But you must - must - expunge any vestige of racism.