Let’s not dismiss and miss the point.

It's sad that President Carter is being criticized so harshly for his comments about race in this country. Racism still exists. Who better to identify the warning signals, than someone who grew up in a world where it was as close as your next breath? There is nothing wrong with our elders giving us advice. I think James Madison said, "If we don't know our history, we are doomed to repeat it." But once identified, we have an opportunity to examine ourselves and see what our feelings are surrounding this issue. It's also true that our world has changed. More and more our racial landscape is blending. Our President is referred to as a Black (African American) man, but a White woman made this contribution to the world. I also grew up Black even though my father was American Indian and my mother is a mixture poured from a Louisiana melting pot. The label of African American wasn't my choice. At some point the Black label got transformed. I've never been to Africa and I've met Africans who don't like Black Americans any more than they like White Americans. Growing up in the turbulent era of civil rights meant I had my share of being called he N-word and being told to go back where I came from. My answer has always been the same, "Chicago?" I guess my point is that there will always be someone who doesn't like, doesn't trust, and doesn’t tolerate you because of race. There was a rainbow of faces at my family gatherings, but I knew there was danger in certain neighborhoods. You couldn't cross one avenue because it was the dividing line between the races. Fortunately, that has changed somewhat and unless it's Orange County or Simi Valley, I'm pretty much ok. I've been married for 20 years to a man who has a family tree that grew in Scandinavian soil. Even he is a mixture of Swedish and Norwegian. What we've given to the world is a daughter who is part Black (African American), American Indian, Jewish, Irish, Norwegian, Swedish...you get the picture. None of us can truly claim only one bloodline, unless cousins were the only ones at the party. We need to get beyond this affliction of racism. The majority of us in this country have. Dare I say that the world is moving beyond it simply because isolation is hard to come by these days.