Day after inauguration thoughts

the day after the oath administered to a new president ... i am in mcdonalds ... thinking nice thoughts

so how do i attract your attention … other than not capitalizing anything…

i have, much of my life been either prejudiced, or guilty … usually both…

raised, surfing, sailing, and studying, in southern california in a middle class (but what child does not consider his parents middle class) all white all protestant section of l.a. I was immune to racial issues other than listening to the echos of gang and racial violence in other areas of town…

and then college, nrotc, an officer in nuclear submarines where the first taste of racial differences in the usa was being served by philippine stewards …. even as a midshipman i was served i was different …

and slowly the racial prejudices began to form … and i don’t even know why…they just did.. as did a modicum of guilt … you know, why was i better but apparently i was … or i would be doing the serving… i did not realize then that serving is, in fact, a wonderful calling … if it were self initiated…

and then graduate school at stanford, where, there were blacks all three or so of them… matched by all three or so of women…

and there were discussions of racial injustice, military injustice … there were riots there were strikes …

and that started the guilt after all it was my race that did slavery … or so i thought, not realizing that we were, as a species, all complicit …

and re enforced by t morrison et al … there were ghosts and i could not distinguish … nor, perhaps should i that the ghosts were of all of us …

and so yesterday barack hussein obama was sworn in …

and today i venture out of a private club .. i am at mcdonald’s and sitting next to me are two african americans dressed in outfits that used to scare me with their anger, my perception…

and I smiled inwardly at how today we were citizen partners … i no longer was prejudiced no longer guilty … it all lifted