[TalnSG]

Sometimes it hard to distinguish racism from discrimination based on nationality or social class. And often because the acts are results of all three.

But I will never forget my first face-to-face encounter with what was primarily racial, but also class discrimination. And like Little K, it was very hard for me to understand at the time.

I grew up in the military and was taught to ignore such arbitrary boundaries between people as race, though both my parents were raised in highly racist environments. I think I was about 7 years old when I visited my paternal grandfather for the first time. I immediately made friends with two of the children whose parent worked on his farm. Since my grandfather was one the people that held that little town together I could wander anywhere I wanted and everyone was very nice to me.

One hot hot afternoon I and my 2 friends walked a few blocks to their version of a convenience store for ice cream. But this time I was stopped at the door and told we couldn't come in. He had never stopped me before, so I was confused. Immediately there were several adults gathering inside the door, whispering and pointing at us. Then we were told we could sit on the steps and that someone would bring us what we wanted. That seemed ok, though we really wanted to go in where there was air conditioning. The obviously upset man brought us our ice cream and we wandered back to the house.

When I got home, my friends were sent home and I was sat down for a rude awakening. The store owner has called the house and explained what happened. My parent understood, but my grandfather was very upset.

I am white and I had tried to take two black children into a "whites only" store in central Louisianna! The only reason we were treated with any civility at all was that the owner knew I was not from around there, and (more importantly to him) he feared retribution from my family if I was mistreated. This was a year or two before I saw my first race riot in Ohio in 1966.