Ebbie, I went on a tour of Europe in 1981. Two members of the tour group were from S. Africa - a woman who was near to my age and her mother. One day the younger woman and I started talking - the subject was black people. She asked how America coped with integration because all the black people she'd seen or met seemed angry and bad-mannered. I asked her how she thought she would act if she was isolated, treated like dirt and kept poor. She actually looked at me with a "wow - I'd never considered that" expression. (The conversation lasted longer than that and was more detailed, but that's the jist of it.)

She was fairly open-minded. She asked the question in all sincerity - a question many of her countrymen had probably allready answered in their own minds. She also really heard my answer, and maybe thought about it some more. Within her own group, she never would have learned anything about life outside it.

(Hey, she was also freaked out by the fact I had a car and was allowed to drive it.)