I must preface this by saying, while I’m technically mixed-race, I’m white. I look white and was raised white. I was late middle-aged when I learned my racial makeup. No one ever denied me a job due to the color of my skin, or threw racial slurs my way. I think that’s important to say, because my observations may not be the same as someone who is black. That may help you to decide on the importance of my observations.

In May we drove to Orlando to meet our daughter’s family for vacation. I posted about that already. With the I-40 bridge over the Mississippi closed, we took a more southerly route. We crossed at Helena Arkansas, drove state highways through northern Mississippi to Jackson, more state highways to Hattiesburg and the Gulf coast, then interstates across the panhandles and on down to Orlando. On the return trip in early June we came back by interstates to Mobile then took state highways to Hattiesburg, interstate to Jackson, then reverse course to Helena and on home.

Our entire route was through the former Confederacy, mostly through what has been called the “deep South”. As we drove we stopped—at gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, hotels, markets. We drove through lots of rural areas, giving me a chance observe houses, people in yards, and communities.

As we traveled, I observed interactions between whites and blacks. Now, I have to digress to say that I hate looking at anyone for their skin color. I’m a believer that we should be color blind. No one is to be looked down upon because of their color, no one is to be elevated because of their color. I realize that’s not the current narrative being pushed on us, which is we need to look at race and make evaluations based on that. I’ve written before on the blog about racism, separating racism from racist acts. You can see them at this link.

If my belief in a color-blind society is what we should be working towards, where people of all skin colors and ethnic backgrounds live together in harmony, caring nothing about skin color, then I ought to see people of all skin colors interacting in harmony on this trip. Seeing that might indicate that society at large has moved a long way towards that state of things.

That’s exactly what I saw. Store clerks were white and black, working side by side. Customers were black and white, socially distancing together, making their purchases, chatting with each other, walking in and out the same doors, holding the doors for each other without regard to color of skin. I observed Hispanics and whites not caring that they were next to each other. Whites served Hispanics when they came to the register and Hispanics served white or blacks when they came to the register.

In hotels, at the breakfast room (yes, some were open again post-pandemic), the hotel guests were of all skin colors and ethnic groups. Nobody seemed to care that they were white and those at the table to their right were black and at the table to their left were Hispanic. It was wonderful to behold. I liked what I saw and traveled through.

All of which gives me hope that we, the USA, have come a long way towards color-blindness. To me that’s a good thing. That may also mean that racism is less of a problem than you would believe from reading the media. If you read my former posts on race relations, you will know I separate racists acts from racism. Racism being that which is in a person’s heart and racist acts being what they do or say as a result of their racism. Maybe, just maybe, racism is much less of a problem and racists are a dying breed.

Again, I say this as a white man. A black man making the same trip as me might observe things I didn’t, or might interpret differently the same exact thing I observed. I can only report what I observed and draw conclusions from what I saw. What I saw was good and encouraging. May the USA continue on this good path and continue to deal with and eliminate what flaws we still have based on skin color and ethnicity.