My tone is a bit didactic. It’s why strangers assume I’m in a position of authority. It’s why I make a great tour guide. It also seems to be why people don’t like being around me. I can sound like a lecture when I’m just expressing my thoughts. This is confusing  for me because my worldview is based on the assumption I don’t matter. That’s not a fish hatchery for compliments – I just accept in the greater scheme of things most of us are fairly insignificant. I feel like I’m the person that is mentioned in history books as an early influence of someone that really makes a difference. And that’s good enough for me. I don’t think the world can completely change in my lifetime. I do think my existence proves change is coming. I probably would’ve been a civil rights activist in an earlier life. 

I hope to tell my story.  I have enough perspective to know I was around to experience the dying gasps of true racism.  The blind assumptions that dominate social culture in America don’t go away without a certain amount of upheaval.  The disparity I see in our society now is stark enough to be the dying gasps of prejudice I’ve been waiting for.  Optimistically, I see racism becoming a nationwide faux-pas by the end of this decade.  In Seattle, it’s already taboo but I know there are places yet to convert.  Until the children in Oxford, MS correct their fathers’ casual use of the N-word on a regular basis I won’t consider the plague eradicated.

That’s just the litmus test I use.  I’m sure there are plenty of valid ones out there.