Reply #16: In the Jim Crow south, the only thing lower than a "n_____" was ...

[TahitiNut]

... a "n_____-lover." That was ALL about race ... and the threat of violence or death (e.g. "Mississippi Burning") for the unforgivable social sin of being a "traitor to race." Such attitudes aren't in the soil or controlled by the calendar ... and were not limited to just the south or just THAT time.

We each live in a different world. We look out at our personal world and "see" a very unique and personal reality. From the glances of other people one passes on the street, to the body language of bureaucrats with whom we must interact, to the attitudes of business people, to the posture of the teachers in our schools, to the reaction of potential employers (or mates), we are inundated with impressions both overt and subliminal. Further, we are each equipped and trained to frame that daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute experience -- even when viewing visual media (magazines, TV, movies) and seeing other with whome we can relate to one degree or another. We react. We tell ourselves our "stories" ... almost without noticing. Continuously. While it's easy to oversimplify and pretend there are larger, shared worlds, the reality is they're each unique. When we buy in to the oversimplifications, we lose.

When I keep this in mind, I find that I'm more inclined to make those individual worlds better places as I travel through them by my glance or attitude or expression ... in that moment in time that I pass another human being. In so doing, I actually find myself improving my own world.