>>Ar282...Boy, it is hard to explain succinctly why I quibble with your analysis! I suppose we just must disagree about our basic premises.<<

Or maybe deep down, you see what I'm getting at and you're afraid you might have not only bought into racism but may have hurt people because of it without realizing it--until now.

So you stay and quibble as much as you hate to. It reminds me of that one song from "The Wall": "I want to go home/Take off this uniform and leave the show/But I'm waiting in this cell because I have to know/Have I been guilty all this time?"

>>I think you are labeling WAY too many complex behaviors and actions under one term which is so emotionally loaded. "Racism" is a serious charge in this society, and to categorize all subconscious behavior that 'might' be suspect that way just doesn't take into account other motives.<<

Because those motives don't matter. What matters is the end result of the person who has been victimized. You're a cabbie who pases a black man standing in the rain trying to flag you down and then you punch out and go home. Doesn't affect you at all. Meanwhile, there's a pissed off man standing in the rain trying to get home too. And he KNOWS why no one will pick him up. He's the one who has been hurt and it is because of his race--nothing more--because if he wasn't black, he'd be home by now. And he knows it.

>>I KNOW there is racism...I do not LIKE racism.....I have been active for many years in combating racism, but there are few issues more complex and hard to sort out. It is many, many shades of gray, not just black & white.<<

And what about affirmative action--the practice that denies whites equal access to certain schools and classes--do you favor that? Is it racism or are there many more factors that make it justifiable to tell a white person: "Yes your grades in high school were excellent, yes you passed the entrance exam with flying colors, yes you scored far higher than the black, Native and Hispanic students and, yes, you also took time to come down here early and enrolled in the class before them. But we're going to admit them and turn you away. It's not racism, it's far more complex than that. We have to right wrongs here. How long do we practice this? For as long as there is racism."

Tell that to Jennifer Gratz and see if she buys it. In fact, tell that to white America and see how it flies. It's never racism until it is directed at you and then you see that it is nothing but.