I am not a racist. But I do have biases and prejudices. Most people do.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll concludes that 3 in 10 Americans admit to race bias. I think that ratio is unrealistically low. Only 51 percent of those surveyed called race relations in this country "good" or "excellent". The other 20 percent must come under the heading of "I've got this friend...." My junior-year high school history teacher used to test our acceptance of other races ("Some of my best friends are....") with the question, "But would you want your sister to marry one?"

In observing my own reactions to people of different skin-color, I use the test of a person approaching me on an otherwise empty sidewalk or alleyway. I am more wary if the approaching person is not of my race, especially if it is a male. Interestingly, when I lived on the west side of Yonkers in a predominantly "minority" neighborhood, my wariness ran higher when I saw a white person I didn't know.

My point is that I think most of us--if not all of us--have certain pre-conceived notions about Blacks, Whites, Orientals, Arabs, and any group that is not "us". I know I do.

Of course, my biases don't restrict themselves to skin color. Being of Irish-Italian extraction, I expect Irishmen to be great drinkers and Italians to be loud and fun-loving. They may act otherwise, but I am less surprised if they behave according to my stereotypical expectations: i.e., my biases.

Call up any group you want: Catholics, Indians, Canadians, Jews, Marines, Republicans, Democrats, the French. I even have certain expectations of Americans traveling abroad. I expect certain behaviors and mindsets of all these groups. I am biased. I am prejudiced. And often I am disappointed, and happy to be, when they behave or think better than I expected.

So is it really 3 out of 10 Americans who are racially biased? Would 9 out of 10 Americans really be "comfortable" with a Black president? That's what the survey said. In truth, I think the actual numbers are quite different. That's not bad. It's just the way I think it is. So why don't we all just admit it and move on from there?

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high school history teacher used to test our acceptance of other races ("Some of my best friends are....") with the question, "But would you want your sister to marry one?"

Interesting Joe that you would mention the above as a touchstone because that very statement was was my "ah hah moment." I was having a conversation with one of my liberal roommates while we were in college, and I said, "But I would worry if my daughter......."

The silence hung in the air and in that silence my way of looking at the world and at other people changed. And has not changed back.

I have a single magnetic bumper sticker on my car. It says "Eracism." It has been on my car for so long that I forget it is there.

I was astonished at the warm welcome and great service I received at the car wash when I had to have it detailed to remove some of this $@#%#@ construction cement/paint.

I just expect people in the South to be polite so it wasn't until a mature man with a toothless grin who was doing that back-breaking work in the hot sun pointed to my magnet and gave me a "thumbs up!"

I just took a walk up to our friends' house with my granddaughter. I love my neighborhood. I greeted the two Hindu families who live two and four houses up from me. The neighbor from the Phillipines' mother was in her yard. She doesn't speak English but we waved. My African -American neighbor was taking in his trash.

Then I took some time to spend with my white friends. We talked of children and church and them taking me and my husband out Wednesday to celebrate my 40th wedding anniverssry.

Unfortunately before TG and I left, I mentioned our Alaskan cruise.

"Why don't you start drilling while you're up there?"

"It will take ten years."

"If Obama wins nothing will be done. I believe he is a Muslin. Always has been a Muslin. blah, blah, blah..."

Some people change or at least arrest their prejudices. Some people do not.

Many years back, I realized that when I saw a black man or black woman I automatically paired them as looking like some black person in the media. It was the realization that I didn't do that with white people that made me realize my own problem. I was not seeing these people as individuals.

I grew up in a town that had laws, until The Civil Rights Act of 1964, that no black person was allowed in the city limits after sunset. (The law as written did not use the term "black person" preferring a more vulgar single word.) The blind black man who ran the refreshment stand in City Hall was taken home by the police on days when the sunset before his normal closing time of 6 PM. I don't remember his name, but I remember my grandpa going in to buy "refreshment." Among the normal candies and cigarettes, he also sold bootleg whiskey. This was widely known by everyone. He always had a guitar behind the counter and often played blues and Kansas City Jazz, though I did not know what blues or Jazz was at the time.

As a species we are evolved to look for differences on a tribal level. If we don't recognize a person as one of our tribe, we treat them as an enemy. That doesn't make it right, but it does take some education to get rid of the prejudice. It is easily manipulated for political purposes.

The youth of today are more accepting than we who grew up in more racists times.

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I grew up in a town that had laws, until The Civil Rights Act of 1964, that no black person was allowed in the city limits after sunset. (The law as written did not use the term "black person" preferring a more vulgar single word.) The blind black man who ran the refreshment stand in City Hall was taken home by the police on days when the sunset before his normal closing time of 6 PM. I don't remember his name, but I remember my grandpa going in to buy "refreshment." Among the normal candies and cigarettes, he also sold bootleg whiskey. This was widely known by everyone. He always had a guitar behind the counter and often played blues and Kansas City Jazz, though I did not know what blues or Jazz was at the time.

Wow! Frank. I don't think South Carolina had any such laws.

Columbia was a planned city. The streets of the center of the city are all perfect squares with the main street running in a straight line from the Capital Building. On that street were the shops that white people mostly frequented. The street adjacent and parallel was called Assembly Street and the Black people shopped mainly on that street. I was never afraid to go on Assembly and I don't have a memory of a Black person hesitating to walk on Main Street. People of color were -- as we all know -- not allowed to use the same water fountains, bathrooms, or eat at the Woolworth's Counter where many shopped.

I do remember that it was a "rule" of etiquette that white people didn't shop on Saturday. They shopped during the week. Saturday was the day Black people had off from their manual labor jobs and shopped.

A friend had an editorial in the paper Friday about race. He said that on his birth certificate his race is listed as Negro. That is not on the birth certificates of his sons. It does not make them less Black in culture and heritage.

To deny his culture and heritage would be something he would regret.

Kathy

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As a species we are evolved to look for differences on a tribal level. If we don't recognize a person as one of our tribe, we treat them as an enemy. That doesn't make it right, but it does take some education to get rid of the prejudice. It is easily manipulated for political purposes.

Recognizing the differences we see in other people is a fact, unless one is totally non-perceptive. Some of our reactions to those differences is going to be somewhat "knee-jerk": just reflex. What we do on a conscious and willed level, how we act or speak out in light of what we perceive makes all the difference.

There are some who say we should strive to be "color blind", not seeing the actual difference in skin pigmentation. I remember the policy of the Office of Black Ministry in the Archdiocese of NY back in the 70s. They held that variations in color--even different shades of black and brown--must be seen and acknowledged and then gloried in. Prejudice isn't cured by turning a blind eye. The cure comes from seeing the beauty that shines through the prism of each and every color, each and every person of color, each and every human being.

In spite of those beautiful sentiments and the great experiences I had with that group and elsewhere, I know it's something I still have to work at. After all, like the rest of you I (I think), I am still a work in progress.

At Last We Talk Freely About Race.

I do have a bias against boys/men who wear droopy/baggy pants. It seems so sloppy and even dangerous(as in "falling down" dangerous). It's not a rational thing, and I find myself very impatient with these people whenever I am dealing with them. I also have the same bias with girls that let their thongs show while wearing very low-rise pants/shorts.

Donna, that is a correctable life-style habit. The color of one's skin or their religious upbringing cannot be altered easily; although Michael Jackson has certainly tried!!!

I guess we could all get spray-on tans...

Joe, I certainly would like to be able to say that I have no biases or prejudice whatever!

I wish I could. As with you, I can't. However, I do work on those failings constantly.

It has always struck me as being highly inappropriate and hypocritical for a Jew to experience any feelings of bias.

Donna, don't knock those spray tans! those of us who don't tan as easily as you, well...sometimes, if we wanna look a bit more "fit" (yeah, that's the word, "fit") find those spray tans helpful in starting to tan more on the golf course! OMG! That sounds so shallow!