I grew up in a mostly “all-white” community.  In my high school, although there may have been, I don’t remember any non-whites.  I believe that more than half the students were Jewish.  Since my first office job was in downtown Los Angeles, working for the County of Los Angeles, there was a wide array of races, religions and nationalities.
 My first adult best friend was Japanese, born in one of the “Internment Camps” during WWII.   Her parents had owned a nice home and a grocery store.  They were given one week to sell both before placed in the camp.  Of course, they lost both their home and store. In Europe millions of Jews and other non-Jewish victims, including Catholics, homosexuals, gypsies and more, died at the hand of Hitler and his followers.  They didn’t fit into Hitler’s “Master Race.” When I was a child, I remember my aunt, referring to her Black maid, saying, “I’m not prejudice, I even let Vera eat dinner with us.”  I didn’t understand that then, and I don’t understand it now. My father served in the army during WWII.  When a soldier in the same barracks as my dad learned that my father was Jewish said to him, “You can’t be Jewish.”  When my father asked why not, the soldier replied, “Because you don’t have a tail.”  He was raised to believe that all Jews had tails, and he truly believed it. I could go on and on about times throughout history where particular groups of people were tortured, killed, singled out or treated as property or second-class citizens. There are different words used to describe it - prejudice, bigotry, bias, racist, discrimination, stereotyping, and more – but all are basically the same behavior, an attitude or actual negative actions toward a particular group of people based solely on the fact that they belong to that group. Prejudice arises out of ignorance, although environment and upbringing certainly may contribute to it.  It is ugly.  It is irrational.  I believe it is a behavior born of fear and cowardice.  Bigotry drives people to take evil, pointless actions against other groups or individuals. I do not know now, and I never did, how any human being can think they are better than any other human being or that any one particular group of people can be considered “less than” any other group.
 I am less educated than many people, smarter than others.  I am plainer than some people, more attractive than others.  I am kinder than thousands of people, far less charitable and giving than millions of others.  I am simply me, no better or worse than any single group of individuals.
 Whoever you are, wherever you were born, no matter your sexual orientation, whatever your beliefs and to whichever race you belong, I believe that I am no better or worse as a person than you. Although I doubt it will ever happen, I pray that one day prejudice will fade into non-existence.

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