[From Editor: A very wise Tim McGaha of Tim's Thoughtful Spot writes regarding bigotry]
We are still, when it's all said and done, human. And this is a very human failing. We'll make progress against it, but I don't know that we'll ever be totally rid of it. We can hope for that day and work towards it, but I fear that only the dead have seen the end of racism.

[Jmyste responds]
Tim,

I think I see an end to racism in the offing, a distant offing, an offing that requires a special telescope to observe it, but as sure as pudding and sweet potato pie, it is there. The racist tendency, however, will survive long after racism is made impossible. Europe is a union. Israel is a melting pot. The U.S. is a melting pot. My home is a melting pot.

I am a pale Caucasian and my wife is an African American, although she does not appreciate the term. I tried shortening it to only African, but she does not like that either. She retaliated with the proclamation that I am a European American, and I proudly confessed that it was true. She declared that she is just an American, like me, but as a good racist, I clung to the notion that she is bound in some cosmic way to her own continental adjective. I must tread lightly. Just what kind of American is she? How do I let people know she is black? Is it wrong for me to tell anyone, as there is no appropriate adjective to use? When I use any adjective at all am I guilty of suggesting that one is needed, that her race is real data?

I feel like my wife and I are a modern Pangean couple and that is all that matters. If she did not love me so much, the issue would be very delicate. I have to remember her history with care and never lose sight of the fact women are riddled with cryptic emotional objections and, as a member of the culturally sensitive elite, I must respect them. I once made the mistake of uttering such a thought to her, but she accused me of being sexist. Once race is hard to distinguish because women like my wife have shuffled our genes together as to render race unrecognizable, perhaps in the year 3428, there will not, as we may worry, be a big empty spot where racism used to live. We will still have sexism.

I explain to my wife that I must acknowledge the reality that women and men are not equal, but that does not make me sexist. A small sampling of the two sexes will reveal that women are more emotional and nurturing than men are. Men are more competitive, proud, and mechanically inclined, than women are. This does not mean that all men are more of this or all women are more of that. It just means that with a small sniff you can find a hint of a difference in the air.

I am a European Caucasian. My wife is an African American. Our children will be some of both, the new race, the inevitable race. God, I hope my children will be part Caucasian.

My name is John Myste and I am a modern racist: not because I feel racial prejudice. I don’t think I do; not because I express anything that could be construed as racially offensive, although I often do; it is because my wife is a member of the more sensitive of the two sexes and I know it.

Virtually Sincere,
JMyste

This, unfortunately, is playing right into their hands. Extremists are encouraging all this, with glee.

It is their sense that by doing this that Americans are going to alienate American Muslims to the point where even relatively moderate Muslims are going to be pushed into joining extremist movements like al-Qaida. They couldn't be happier.

 - - Evan F. Kohlmann, Flashpoint Global Partners, August 24, 2010
     Flashpoint is a New York-based security firm. Kohlmann tracks extremist
     web traffic

The advancing steps in public discourse are incremental and often painfully slow. Anger at the apparent progress of black people served as a backdrop for other hatreds. Regional bigotry seemed mysterious to outsiders. Asians were hated mostly on the Pacific coast, until a few horrible years after Pearl Harbor painted everyone with the same brush. Prejudice against Native Americans remained a Southwest obsession, overlapping to other areas in the casual, unresentful thoughtlessness of most stereotypes. To most of America, the Kennedy election of 1960 was a triumph over anti-Catholic prejudice. To many it was a decisive blow against the No-Irish-Need-Apply attitudes experienced by that family for generations in the Boston area.

On some project when I was in high school, a few of us conducted a community survey on racial views. "I'm not prejudiced," explained one resident to me. "I'll tell who is prejudiced, though. It's those goddamn Irish Catholics."

In the 1950s and 60s, Harvard mathematician Tom Lehrer became famous after hours as a pianist and satirist whose songs carried pointed social commentary. One laugh line, after a narrative of various hatreds, was simply "and everybody hates the Jews." A friend in Baltimore, an older fellow who took me under his wing for a while, explained the success of one car dealer specializing in upscale, expensive models. His unusual business model was to sell to anyone who could afford to buy. Other dealers would, in those days, pointedly refuse to sell to Jews. Except for the most extreme fringes, anti-Jewish bigotry is on the way out.

Some prejudices seem to incubate for a while, as subgroups are viewed through a special prism reserved for them and those with a common background. Active discrimination sometimes erupts with a fury with economic disruption or national attack or with some other motive for broad brush stereotyping.

After 9/11, anyone who looked Arab or worshiped God in a Mosque was in some physical danger. Now Muslims are the active national target. A library friend is offended at my characterizing his views as bigotry. He explains that he doesn't hate Muslims. He just knows that Islam is satanic and Muslims are anti-American. As I explain that using actions of individuals or fringe groups to condemn large groups of innocents is wrong, he counters by bringing up examples of individuals and fringe groups.

We are comforted by a future in which these hatreds are rejected. But our comfort should be cautious. If history is a guide, future generations will indeed wonder about the irrational hatred of black people or gays or Muslims or Arabs or Mexican immigrants. They may shake their heads about the time and passion wasted on that nonsense when the real enemy is whatever group they will be targeting.