by Ed Dugan

Created on: October 28, 2008

If you look at a person of another color and have negative thoughts, are you prejudiced? If the other person has similar thoughts about you does that make you both prejudiced? If you could count the number of white people in America who don't like black people and the number of black people who feel the same way about white people the percentages might be pretty close to even. The truth is we really don't know because prejudice almost always lurks just beneath the surface of our public persona. Most people won't admit they have any but we all know differently, don't we?

Prejudice is not the same as racism. Racism requires an overt act to make it known and is a form of blanket hatred. Prejudice, on the other hand, is much more subtle and differs to some degree between white people and black people, at least to my way of thinking. Many black people are prejudiced because of the way they have been treated by white people, something not difficult to understand. Many white people however are prejudiced against black people simply because they are black.If everyone would stop thinking in racial terms and think about a black or white person as just another human being, they might be amazed at how many they end up liking.

Both races feed their prejudices rather than stifle them. People have a tremendous amount of baggage they carry around in the form of race cards they continue to deal to each other. Some of the baggage has been with us a long time and some was picked up only yesterday. Acts of Congress, civil rights marches, sit-ins and boycotts, celebrating Dr. King's birthday are not milestones on the journey to racial equality, they are simply events that come and go, but the baggage is still with us. If we can dispose of the baggage the events will take their proper place in history and life between the races will be much more peaceful. Our problem is first we develop and attitude about other races, then a perception, and if they are both wrong, only trouble can follow.

One of the pieces of baggage we have carried around for a long time is integration. Ask yourself how much real progress has been made towards America becoming an intergrated society. Fifty years of attempted integration, in one form or another, has given us mixed results. The neighborhood school, as many of us knew it, has disappeared, billions of dolllars have been spent, the school bus industry has flourished and, although black students are somewhat better off, just how much better off is open

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