Sumitra's Story by Rukshana Smith

Many of her family and friends blame everything on the color of their skin. Sumitra hears them say, "If I were black, I'd have got rehoused by now!" "If I was colored, they'd have given me that job!" And Indians blame the fact that they are brown for not getting jobs and houses.

Is this, Sumitra wonders, a device to cover up inadequacy? In order to preserve the myth of difference, people seem to line up in rows of black, brown or white and hurl their prejudices at each other. That way they never have to meet, never discover that beneath their skin they are all the same.