No, Carol, IMO, he did not. He simply says that he is careful with whom he interacts. But what I believe he cannot see is that by virtue of his "avoidance" he is practicing and teaching benign racism.

EJ, my belief is that one stands for something by virtue of action or inaction. It seems to me that when you speak in the terms that you are, that you taught your children (and were taught)an "us/them" kind of mentality. I am not calling you a Nazi, but I must use the example of Nazi Germany and the holocaust to demonstrate one of the dangers of that type of thinking. Folks allowed themselves to fall into this type of thinking. In time it desensitived them to the fact that their Jewish neighbors were people like them. Once the benign dehumanization started, it was an easy leap to turn away when the trains rolled by. I don't mean to oversimplify, but this is the problem one gets into when they allow their children to be taught that somehow "they" are different. That is why, when it comes to these issues, I believe that "rising above the masses" would be best expressed by standing for principles like understanding a diverse culture and world.

Nuff said.

Mick