I appreciate this article because it gave me a new perspective. I can totally see how some of the examples you give are offensive, but the example with the compliment rubbed me the wrong way because… I’m an artist.

When I say to someone, “I love your skin tone!” it’s meant as a sincere compliment, and often it will mean I would like to paint that color.

I paint all sorts of people in my art — blue eyed blonds and blue black Africans and everything in between. I think they are all beautiful, but sometimes it’s hard to capture certain tones.

I have complimented elegant young black women who have helped me at the bank or in the check out line, as well as women (and men) of other races. My compliments are always sincere. The recipients have so far always reacted in a positive manner. I have even had people hug me and tell me that my words helped them when they were having a really rough day.

If I help someone feel better, isn’t that a good thing?

I remember one time I was volunteering at a local charity, the Giving Center. I was helping distribute laptops to needy students. As part of the process, we had to interview the parents and then go through the features of the laptop, make sure the child felt comfortable using it and that it was adequate for his or her schoolwork, etc.

One of the parents who came in was a black man. He was rare — a black man who actually cared enough about his kid to come to the center with his child’s mother. Most of the time we only saw the mothers. I wish that wasn’t true but it was the reality we dealt with. With Latinos and whites (we almost never had Asians) we often saw both parents. With blacks, the father almost never showed up.

Anyway, I got to talking with him and his girlfriend. She kept putting him down. She used a sarcastic tone and I could tell it hurt him but he was stoic the way most men are in that situation.

But I noticed, when I mentioned something technical, he was picked it up fast, he was much sharper than most people. I commented on how smart he was and his eyes lit up. I asked him about his education. It turned out he’d dropped out of high school. But with his obvious intellect, there was no reason he couldn’t get at least a 2 year degree, or, if he wanted to, much more than that. So I talked to him about options.

It was off topic, and I spent more time talking with him than I’m supposed to, but… he seemed really appreciative.

Now, was I a racist for wanting to help another human being?

Should I now start monitoring myself? But how does that help things? If I only compliment white people and Asians that is racist… if I only try to help fellow Asians or whites, then that is also racist.

I think I’ll continue to compliment black people and try to help them if I can and risk having some of them accuse me of being a racist…