Whenever I'm having a conversation with my parents or family members, and I make a casual comment along the lines of: "Well we're brown anyway, so what does it matter?" My parents will, without fail, correct me every time, vehemently denying the presence of any pigment of melanin in their skin. "Persians are descended from an Aryan race, we're not brown, we're white! The original white, actually!"

But why does that matter? Why do they feel the need to correct me every time? Why is my comment about being brown incense my parents so much? Why is it a point of pride for my family to be able to check the "white" box on forms censuses?

Because we've been trained to believe from birth that to be anything but white is to be lesser, a second-class human if you will. Our society has been built in such a way as to foster ignorance and racism because it has been our system for centuries. I'd love to be glib and blame this problem wholeheartedly on Darwin and his resoundingly incorrect theory and introduction of Social Darwinism, but humankind has viewed paler skin as a superior trait since the dawn of our species.

In medieval Europe, the paler your skin, the wealthier you were because it meant you did not have to toil in the sun like the poorer laborers did. In Egypt and Rome, women would frequently bathe in baths of donkey milk to whiten their skin in order to appear more desirable to a potential partner. Today, there are filters on our smartphones that will lighten our skin and are labeled as "the beauty filter." Unfortunately, society has always viewed white, or at least lighter, skin as beautiful and desirable, and that has not changed today.

Which leads me to the crux of my argument, which is that because of this idea, because we have been raised to believe this thought that lighter skin is better, we have all been indoctrinated with some form of racist tendencies.

That doesn't mean, however, that we're all inherently bad people. I myself had racist tendencies; heck, I probably still do. But the difference is that I am now aware of these tendencies and actively work to demolish them every day. If I think something racist, I immediately chastise myself and try to change my thinking every time. Am I perfect? No. Do I slip up? Of course, to err is human. But by the act of attempting to rid myself of my racist inclinations is the first step to becoming a socially aware citizen.

If you are a living human being, and you have been raised in this culture, any culture, around the world, then you too have these racist tendencies, and you too can actively attempt to fight them and become more socially aware. It's time to stop being defensive and trying to convince everyone around you that you are the exception to the rule, that you have not an ounce of racism in you, and rather accept this is the truth and try to learn from your mistakes.

Try to learn rather than fight. Life is much easier that way.