With Starbucks holding racial-bias training sessions today, I'm reminded of when I worked in the Big City. When I needed work done on my car, I'd drop it off early at the mechanic's shop and walk the ten minutes back to the office. Honeywell wasn't in a safe area of the city. We had extra strong glass in our building windows. Drive-by shootings had made chips in the brick facade. One of our co-workers was murdered in our own parking ramp. As I walked back to the office one morning I saw some African-American high school age boys walking toward me on the sidewalk and, without even thinking about it, my hand went to my purse. "OH NO!" I thought, "I'm prejudiced against blacks." Of course, they passed me by w/o incident but I was disturbed by this revelation about myself. Another group of teens came toward me and once again, my hand automatically clutched at my purse. Difference was these guys were white. "WHOOH!" I was so relieved. I wasn't prejudiced against those of another race. I was prejudiced against young people. (Having been one myself I suppose I remember what foolishness I did.) We think of age discrimination only affecting the elderly but I'm still working on being tolerant of teenagers.
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