I lived in New Orleans briefly while a teenager when segregation was the law. I have seen total cosmetic change and considerable attitudinal change, but the latter is not complete. I also happen to be an ethnic Jew, the child of refugee immigrants. But my father died when I was young and I was adopted by my mother’s second husband and thereby got his surname. What makes that relevant to this note is that having a Christian-sounding instead of a Jewish-sounding last name, I was able to be regarded as not Jewish (that is my ethnicity; I nave no faith; but anti-Semitic prejudice is aimed against Jews both as a religion and as a race) by people meeting me for the first time. Very frequently I would hear these people tell me that they had no prejudices but then go ahead and make prejudiced anti-Semitic remarks.

Tests have shown that people will say publicly that they have no racial prejudice, but act quite differently privately; and the ballot is secret.

I would like nothing more than to be wrong again, and thus to see Barak Obama, clearly the best candidate in this race, to win. He would be better for America and for the world. Quite possibly an Obama administration would not continue the American policy of benign neglect with occasional imperial interference with regard to the Caribbean.

Heaven is a place you make, not a place you must find.