Hal - Deliberately Basic

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2)

When she walks into a room she creates enough energy to light a small city. She has that certain je ne sais quoi that attracts male and female alike. Charisma, charm, class, this force of personality is magnetic, and knows no boundaries. It is such a rare thing, one would have to be remarkably insensitive not to feel it.

At a recent function I met a woman like this. Its not that she is sexy that makes her so attractive, though considering that she was far from young, she was still physically appealing. It is a combination of things, the way she carries herself, her self-confidence, and her uncanny ability to talk at various levels with those around her. Saints or sinners, intellects or dullards, could not daunt her. She was the quintessential classy lady.

By chance we happened to be seated next to each other, and we began the chit-chat of everyday conversation. She is German, having come to the US after WWII, a teenage girl. It was interesting to hear about the culture shock, and we compared notes, I having come from the south as a child, and endured many of the same things. As we went on the conversation turned to immigration in general, the influx of illegal Mexican immigration, and why the hell we have to have two languages. We agreed on everything, and I learned much about what she and her family had to do to legally come to the US. The stipulations were strict, involved, with stringent regulations and requirements.

The stimulating conversation with this classy lady had me caught up in the moment, and I relaxed my usual reservations with people I don’t know. She began to talk about her son who lived in Boston, her recent visit, and the plight of the white male in the US. It was then our thinking parted, me with thoughts of the forgotten white male in politics. I noted that a recent poll showed that when candidates go vote hunting, white males are not considered valuable, compared to other ethic groups.

She began to talk about all the young white men she had seen in Boston with nonwhite women, particularly Asian women. It was a short step to “keeping the races pure” and “I am not a racist, but… .” Suddenly, we had made a leap back to Hitler’s Germany, and Aryan supremacy. She never said those words, but talked around the subject of “cleansing” and “…the sadness of racial mixing… .” More and more she gave me piercing looks, trying to see if I thought as she did. “Do you understand?” she said more than once.

“I am not a racist,” she said. “I see couples in our church, some of them beautiful, Indian women with their cultural garb. They look so nice together, but why dilute the races?”

She went on to tell me how nice it was that “these people” were there, how hard they worked, especially the Chinese, all the while scrutinizing me to see if I was with her or against her. I simply shook my head that I understood. Never once did I say that I agreed with her.

Our definition of what constitutes a racist was not in sync. There is only one species of man on the Earth—Homo sapiens. This species can intermarry and produce offspring. The word racist implies that one race is inferior to another, and intermarriage weakens the superior race. I believe there are superior people, not superior races.

All the time she talked about polluting the races, I had but one, unoriginal, thought. Suppose all races were mixed. What if we were all mutts, and race could no longer be an issue, because without race, no race could be dominant? Problem solved.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her why she believes in racial segregation. I could debate that the caucasian race is impure anyway. We are the ever-evolving product of European mixed breeding. But the most significant thing about all races, the one thing that will always integrate, never distinguish, dominate or reign supreme one race over another is ignorance.

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