We've come a long way but -

Today my daughter Carly & I were eating at the local Waffle House. It was packed and I was enjoying the people watching.

After we came in, three older adults, two women & one man, all white, came in and sat at the counter. Shortly after, two older black men came in & sat in a booth. They offered their booth to a larger family who came in after them and moved to the counter.

While waiting on my order, I could hear the voices of these older folks talking. The two older black men & the older white man struck up a conversation & it continued the whole time I was there. Every so often one of the women would join in. There were moments of humor & also moments of seriousness, but you could tell they were enjoying this exchange of words.

As I listened to the cadence of their voices I was jolted out of my reverie by a sudden realization of just how far our country has come. About 50 years ago I would not have been able to witness this easy going conversation between strangers in a restaurant, as blacks & whites could not sit together. The black men would have gotten arrested for speaking to the white women. Fists would probably have been flying as the white man defended their honor. Yet today, there was an easy going acceptance of the rightness of this. As far as I could tell, no one else in the restaurant even gave it a second thought.

The participants in this conversation were old enough to remember the days before integration, yet they fell into easy camaraderie with each other as if this was the way it had always been. And to our children it has always been this way, with some small pockets of racism, especially in the deep South, but those are usually ignored these days. I talked about it with my daughter as we were leaving and she said one of the things she hates about NC is the racism - that kids her age act as if blacks are dangerous; get nervous when they see them in large groups or talk down about them. So we still have a ways to go before everyone is accepted as 'human' only, without distinctions due to race or gender or sexual preference. But it was nice to see just how far we have come, at least in the race issue, and gave me a faint hope that one day we will have obliterated every line that divides us as long as there are people that continue to teach the children that differences do not make us enemies, but give us strength to move forward together.

PS - And yes, I am very proud of my kids on this issue. I have tried very hard to raise them color blind, gender neutral & accepting of all, while their dad was exhibiting his prejudices at every turn. And they have exceeded my expectations at every opportunity.