 You know, I decided a few years ago to become a student of racism. One of the reasons I decided to put myself in the seat of the listener and the learner about racism is... I always struggled with when people called each other racists to wonder whether I was one or not. Am I a racist? And the reason I felt I wasn't a racist is because the word racist has become so emotive and it means to choose to hate someone of a different race and I don't remember ever doing that. But what helped me was talking to black people around the world, especially in places like South Africa, that I had a legalized form of oppression and people in America, particularly in the southern states of America that had its segregation as well as you all know, asking them help me to understand what it is that I am missing. I don't think I'm a racist, but I don't think I understand the issue, the problem, and I want to. And it's then that I began to understand racism better from the perspective of white privilege. Once I began to understand white privilege, I understood why people called others racist and particularly blacks calling whites racist because I now understood white privilege. I never understood white privilege again because I've never felt privileged in my life because I'm white. And the reason I've never felt privileged because I'm white is because I'm white. You don't know what you don't know. And I wanted to be in someone else's skin. I wanted to be in a black person's skin. The only way to do that is to learn, to not teach or speak to learn. And for 10 years now, I've been doing multiple experiments, interviews, discussions, reading, listening, watching what it's like to be in a black person's skin. And now I understand white privilege. I spoke to a gentleman in South Africa, a black South African, some years ago and he said this to me to help you understand white privilege. He said, what are the color of band-aids? Sticking plasters, we call them in England. I said, well, they're flesh color. He said, well, what color flesh are they? And I thought, yeah, they're white Caucasian colored flesh. He said, that's right. He said in South Africa, a country of 60 million people, 40 million of those people are black, but there's no band-aids. That's the color of their skin. He said to me, how many black superheroes is there? I could only think of one that had just recently come out, which was the Black Panther. I think there's two Iron Man sidekick as well. But he said to me, exactly. He said, you know, there are over 7,000 superheroes in the Marvel Comics franchise and we only have one black superhero after all this time. He began to tell these things to me and I began to understand what he meant by white privilege and our blindness to a world that's stacked in our favor and a world that's rigged to their disadvantage. In America, I spoke to people, black people, and they asked me questions like, listen, to understand white privilege, ask yourself this, can you drive into any neighborhood without being followed, reported, being suspicious? Can you walk in any store without being observed or followed by the store security people? Can you date any girl of any color that you like? Can you apply for any job that you want? Can you get credit and loans for your business? Can you get a mortgage? Can you live in a neighborhood you want to? And on and on and they said to me, we can't because we are black and I began to understand that I was born privileged. It's not different to how people that are born male in many cultures are born privileged by being male or been born into a certain caste level in India. Being born into a certain caste system gives you a privilege, an inherited, gifted, bequeathed privilege that wasn't earned, it was given and granted because of the status you were born in. And I began to understand I'm not racist, I don't hate people of another color, but I am privileged. And to not be aware that you are privileged has the same effect on people as being racist. But to be in other people's shoes, to understand what life looks like from their skin, their shoes, their world is the only way we white people will understand what they've been trying to tell us for generations. So if the word racist bothers you, then move that word aside and reframe this idea, reframe this understanding through the eyes of privilege. Are you privileged because of the condition you were born in? The socioeconomic status you were born in, the color of your skin, the caste, the gender, whatever it may be, that's what they are trying to tell us. And I'm not asking anybody to apologize for it, and they're not either. Black people are asking us to apologize for being born white. They're asking us to be aware that being born white gives us an artificial empowerment over those that were not born white. That's it. And to be aware of that, and to walk with an awareness of that, and to not live inside the confinement of that, and to use your and use our privilege to speak up for those that are not privileged because they were not born the same color or status as us, is all underprivileged people, is all minorities, ask us to do. So I become much more aware of that in the last few years, and that's why I've been vocal on this for years, and I've now began to post some things on social media. Boy, does it bring out the haters, and that's my point. White people, the viciousness, the rage. When anybody like my skin color says anything of this kind, the rage is scary. I just wanted to say those things to you guys, to add my voice to what's going on in the world. Love you guys, love and praise are with you all. Thank you.