I Rather Stay With People Of My Own Kind
Once I watched a TV show where a vegan woman was saying that she only hanged out with other vegans and couldn’t spend her time with people who did not share her same ideas on nutrition. It sounded nut to me. Can we really spend time only with people same as us?
It slightly feel like that is the case: it’s easier, simpler and natural. I mean, you spend time with people at work so they will become your friends, what’s hard in it? You automatically keep in touch with them as you see them every single day, almost. You can go out with people of your same religion, god knows that’s easy too, after all, you all believe in the same thing. In the same way, some might argue that going out or hanging out with people with your same racial background it’s easier as well. It should be. However, the closest people I found during my studies at Cardiff University, in terms of background were American-Iranian women, not certainly Congolese women. The reason is quite simple: we shared the same experience, or a similar one. They had their ancestors in a different country from the one they were born in and yet, they felt the need to talk about their country of origin. And they did that starting from their families.
In London, I eventually got closer to Africans and heard the strangest statement from a friend of Afro-Caribbean origins: “my friends wouldn’t necessarily hang out with white people”. Really? It sounded surreal and unreal, out of my mindset. If anything I would have struggled to stay with all blacks, and not for racial issues, simply because there aren’t many blacks in Italy and I was used to hang out more with white people when I was a child.
From time to time the thought of spending my time and discuss with people who can understand my background is so reassuring I’d like to lay on it, but truth is I’ve learnt the most from people who were from a completely different background as mine. And to be honest, I’ve been always attracted to them anyway. And the idea of limiting myself to people “like me” sounds slightly boring now. Doesn’t It?
BALOBESHAYI 
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