Bostongirl, I don't know where this is going but since I have invested quite a bit of my day on this thread, and I acknowledge you have too , allow me to sound off on a couple of more things. " You cannot say 'well, you are not racist, but your statement is' ..." I am quite happy to say your are wrong. I have no problems saying you are not a racist. That's exactly what I was alluding to when I said you missed the point. In fact, that's what I focussed that whole reply on - discerning the difference between a racist comment and a racist person. A person can say something that is prejudicial, even racist, but may not have a racist world-view consistently or at all. That's something that has been pretty obvious to me for years, and I would hope to most sensible people too, and I didn't for a moment think you were racist solely because of that one remark. In fact, based on everything else you have said, on this and other threads which I read while waiting for your replies, I think you are a better person than that statement you made. My intent was never to pin you as a racist - it was to challenge your statement and the underlying premises - because I honestly felt such a comment reflected what, in my opinion, was an intellectual travesty, and I could not let it go unchallenged on a public forum like this. Since you made some suggestions for what I should do, in the same spirit, allow me to make one for you. How about you so much as admit that the words you chose did not convey your true feelings about issues of race? I have other suggestions too, based solely on what you have said, but I don't think they are pertinent to this specific point and I realize we probably don't care too much about each others suggestions at this time. All right, one more piece of slicing and dicing: "You say watever you said is for intellectual reasons..but is it really if you cannot read something without being judgemental? " It's okay that you think I am such. What I can say is I make a deliberate effort not to be. We may disagree on the outcome of my efforts on this thread, but I feel I looked at this fairly objectively and I felt your way of looking at things was concern enough for me to speak up about it. We can go back and forth on this for many many days because you just dont seem to get the racism out of your head and I refuse to let you judge me or my statement in an absolutely negative way. " Again it's not you but your statement. I am not obsessed with racism. Just concerned with the undertone, if not the overtone, that I, and I think quite a few others, detected in your statement. To me it doesn't matter which - as long as I sense some element of it. Racism is a vast topic and if we are to talk about it, we'd probably end up spending a lot more time, or days like you said, and I have a feeling there is a good chance we might agree a lot more on that subject than we have on this thread.