An interesting story that happened to me over the weekend. I was in Northeast Tennessee at a TVA lake which has a nice swimming area with a beach. My son loves to go there when we are in that part of the state. He was having a blast out playing with the kids in the water.
A lady came up to me and when she began to speak I knew immediately that she wasn't from "around these parts" (it works both ways
). I had an idea of where she was from because I have a segment of my family from the Queen City, though I generally avoid that part of the extended family (and they avoid us so it all works out well).
Regardless, she confirmed that she was from Cincinnati and had moved there recently. She began telling me how much she loved the region primarily because there weren't many of "them" around. I don't know if I was too busy keeping an eye on my son or am just that naive, but I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about. So she said, "you know, them." She told me that she called her brother and told him that she had gone an entire week without seeing a black person (though she used a pejorative there). He had told her in reply that he might have to move there too.
I looked at her and said, "what makes you think that I think like you do?" She dragged herself back over to her beach towel.
Interestingly, at that very moment I thought to myself that it is amazing that so many people live insulated from the reality that racism exists alive and well in 2007 (just like the title of this thread). I hear many people pay it small lip service and then talk about how it really doesn't exist or talk about examples of how white people are discriminated against.
Racism, geared towards blacks and especially Hispanic people is very much alive and well.