<You might want to peel off the Honor Student stickers going through some of those places.

Har har. ;)

I can't think of anywhere between here and South Dakota where I would feel uncomfortable with either NRA or honor roll stickers. I was born in South Dakota, but on the eastern side. Should be okay there, although even a few of my own relatives are definite rednecks by any definition (in South Dakota any racism is typically directed towards Indians, although this was worse when I was a kid than it is now). Don't think they would "key" my car for having honor roll stickers on it... ;)

Thinking of that, and of driving through the Western states reminded me of something:

A funny thing happened in southern Idaho last year on the way back from Wyoming. We were driving home and went to a zoo in a big town whose name escapes me. We had a good time. There was a barbecue, and we were sitting around under the trees at the park eating. People were all around, and my wife commented on how nice this place was, and how comfortable she felt here. I smiled, and asked her why she felt that way. She had no idea, just that she felt at home here. She said it felt more rural than where we lived. I pointed out that this town was as densely populated as ours. I told her to look around at the people. She did, and still had no clue what I was talking about.

I pointed out that in that park, almost everybody was a white, English-speaking, suburban, average-looking middle American person. No accents. No constant background of other languages. There were maybe a dozen minorities in the entire park (also suburban in dress, for the record), and they spoke English.

First she told me I was full of shit. Then she thought about it. Then she was aghast. Was that really it? Was she racist? I calmed her down. It isn't racism. It isn't contempt for other races or backgrounds. It's simply the comfort everyone gets from being around people just like them, and it's universal to the entire human race, and probably a majority of the higher animals as well.

The reason she noticed it here for the first time was that where we usually live, white English-speaking people are a definite minority. Mostly Hispanic, a large number of Asian, and a thorough mix of every other race on Earth. Spanish is a constant background in restaurants, stores, and other public places. Almost every coworker at my wife's pharmacy is Asian, and although she is great friends with them, there is still an "otherness" there.

My kids were born in the Bay Area, and don't seem to notice race any more than a fish notices water. Neither of them felt anything odd about the park either, but that could just be the distractedness of youth, and I didn't want to bring up the subject in their presence. My daughter, at my encouragement, is learning Spanish. Very useful around here.

I was born in the Midwest, and although I liked to think I didn't really notice race and culture any more after years in California, the odd decompression my wife and I both felt in that park was an indication that I, like most people on Earth, am not as blind to such things as I would like to be. Then again, wherever different races and backgrounds gather, they tend to clump together on their own. Is this racism, or just a natural "birds of a feather" reaction? I like to think the latter, like I told my wife. Still, when I first figured it out why we liked it in the park, it was not a comfortable revelation.