"Mud people" and such - that's how they prefer to see them.

Makes waking wars in the third world that much easier for the Epstein class.

that I am a lesbian. If they actually say it to my face, my response, as I slide my sunglasses down my nose to stare at them, is, "Are you the alternative?" For some odd reason, that usually ends the interaction. shruggg.

That would be EPIC!

Suspician of strangers is a natural feeling. Turning that into hate is generally done by "leaders" with an agenda to control folks.

That's the challenge, being open to strangers and treating them like one of "us." That's the essence of the Golden Rule.

military dependent, my little, ever-changing world, looked, and sounded, like the UNG General Assembly. I assumed the whole world was like that, until, to my horror, I learned differently.

I think about that song in "South Pacific", "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught".

Bestie was daughter of a Japanese American couple, born and raised in California. Second bestie was Chinese American. Upstairs neighbors were from Columbia. Family down the street was Korean. Next street over, from the Philippines. Mom's best pals were Hawaiian and Guamanian.

Old couple that sat on their porch and kept an eye out for us kids? Russian, and he was missing part of both feet from freezing marching back to Russia from Germany in WWI. Family next to them? She was from Spain, he was French. Her mom was from Japan and his was Dutch. Great family that, a cacophony of languages in that home, and with his French accent, he was the only person who pronounced my given name the way it should be heard.

School pals: Pennsylvania Dutch and few adults could understand them. One kid who came mid-year was said to be from Italy, but he had a VERY slavic name and accent. That was back when the iron curtain was concrete, barbed wire, and guys in machine gun turrets. His dad was a scientist and had recently gone to work at a big southern California university lab; teachers told us to NEVER ask where they were from, especially those of us who knew those weren't Italian names and accents. Three households on the block were Mexican Americans, or as we knew them to be: 'original Californians'.

Mom worked at the Navy Exchange on Terminal Island. Lots of 'war brides' from Europe and the Pacific there. She often invited them over for parties at our apartment with the huge front yard. All the neighbors came too. Block party at the UN there in Long Beach, CA. Everyone brought records from their nations, and foods. Dancing, singing, kids teaching other kids words in other languages. Mom's French co-worker got my granddad up doing a can-can with her at one of our block parties. He was a 78 year old widower and she dragged him out of his stiff necked midwestern male shell, without even a drop of wine needed.

BEST possible place to grow up. Then we moved to Orange County & for the first time in my life, I ran up against something 'foreign' to me: bigotry. Didn't sit well. Still doesn't.

interactive. We were transferred frequently. .I went to seven schools in nine years. It wasn't until my father retired that I went to the same school, all through high schoool. Although. . . there were any number of people there who would have preferred that I was elsewhere. .admin, some teachers, the school board. .

One very important lesson that I learned as a military dependent was the difference between rank and authority, and the fact that neither of them has ever impressed me!

I was the shy kid, until some bullies hurt my tiny Chinese American friend. Back when lunch boxes were metal and thermos bottles were glass lined metal tubes with some real heft, I clobbered 3 boys who teased my friend until she was sobbing.

One of the military kids in my class gave me a hero hug and it meant the world to my 9 year old self.

but rather the flat, square ones. Easier to carry all my books. Hermione Granger obviously learned from me!!!

Consider this a belated huggggg for your very brave 9 year old self.

religions, races, ethnic groups on a daily basis.

I was never so horrified when we returned stateside and there were kids in civilian school
actively promoting the south, KKK, racism. I kept waiting for the principal to slap them down
but it didn't happen.