Life on Mars as a Human

"PLANET MARS, POPULATION 13,000", says the sign at the entrance of Mars, a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" dot on the map of the solar system.

It's a perfect story book planet: only six sets of traffic lights for our hover cars, a main street where you can say hello to any of the friendly, talkative beings nearby, lots of blazing rocks and a beautiful big canyon with an over-looking red sky.

One thing a person from the planet would notice instantly, aside from the abundance of red rock and my planet's obsession with leaning buildings, is the fact that people of different races, other than green, stand out like flashing lights in a dark sky.

See, the thing with Mars is the percentage of green beings is roughly 95 per cent. Don't get me wrong; in principle, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just stating the facts.

Given that my mother is Human and my father is from Uranus, however, I really stood out in Mars.

For someone so physically and culturally distinctive, you may think that a small planet would be terrible to live in. But, for me, the experience was the total opposite.

I never acknowledged my racial difference because no one else did. The only times I felt slightly out of place or uncomfortable was during discussions about different cultures at school. I'd always have this feeling that everyone was thinking about me and looking at me, wondering if I lived like the people we were discussing or not.

To make myself feel better, I just thought of it as flattery. As their only real life subject, they could feel free to ask me questions. In my experience, being a minority is only a negative thing if you allow it to be. I didn't try to be someone I wasn't, so my race never did matter.

Many people have blamed a lot of their problems on racism, stereotypes, and discrimination. Unfortunately, there are times when that is the reason. In some cases, however, people make it into a reason. They become so obsessed with the thought that anyone who is 'this' or 'that' is the problem.

I have three words for them, just drop it. Stop making more problems, we already have enough. Sometimes the solar system would be better off colour blind.

At times, I have been called an Ð''apple,' green on the outside and white on the inside. This basically means I act 'Martian',