Sitting with a mixed group of people over dinner last week, the discussion turned to how white people in the northern hemisphere would soon be a minority and they would then be the next group demanding affirmative action.

The vehemence of that particular statement was quite shocking and the friendly banter soon disintegrated into barbs and insults causing the group to split into two, with each calling the other "racist".

Caught in the middle I declared I was not a racist and, to my disappointment and fury, both groups broke into sneers and peals of laughter.

Well, an announcement like that from a Dutch woman of Indian descent will certainly cause an outbreak of jibes and sneers and most certainly from those that actually believe that only white people are racist.

Wrong! I've lived long enough and in enough places to know from experience that racism strikes where people are ignorantly fearful that a newly introduced group of ‘other' people will take something from them and that something could be jobs, land, language or culture.

Pause right there for a moment and think of the last time all of you — white, brown, black, Asian, Caucasian or Arab — looked down on a different race or nationality and spouted a racial slur.

Even in this multi-ethnic, multi-racial city of Dubai, there are gross instances of racism at play and most of the time it is not white on brown or black racism, but rather brown on brown, black and white racism.

Also, while non-whites shout the loudest about being discriminated against, they very conveniently forget that when one points a finger at others there are three pointing back.

Scholars writing on the beginnings of racism say that although prejudice between national, ethnic and religious groups has been around since time immemorial, white racism began in 1492 when Columbus and other Spanish invaders looking for gold in Mexico first called the indigenous population "Indians" and then called the entire race "savage and inhuman" because of their colour, size and shape.

Gregory Rodriguez, a Mexican-American author, writes in the latest issue of Time however, that according to the Census Bureau, whites in the United States will become a minority group by the year 2050 and that "how the current majority reacts to its incipient minority status is the most crucial socio-demographic issue facing the country".

He further writes that while for most of US history, white supremacy was the law of the land, a new form of white ethno-nationalism will emerge not as a chest-thumping brand of white power, but more likely exhibiting a defensive, aggrieved sense of white victimhood.

Nobody ever condones the wrongs of the past, but two wrongs do not make anything right and heaping scorn on Europeans/ Anglo-Saxons for what their ancestors did would be akin to blaming every coming generation of Germans for what Hitler did to the Jews in the 1940s and every generation of Japanese for what their ancestors did in China and every generation of Brits for what their ancestors did in America, India and Palestine.

When will race or colour ever cease to matter? I guess we will all have to become innocent children once again and ask the question: What colour is God's skin? The answer I received was: It's black, brown, yellow, red and white — everyone's the same in God's sight.