Blog Against Racism Day was November 30th - as I didn't get the chance to post on that date, here's a belated effort.

For a good portion of my childhood, I was Very White living the Land of Incredible Whiteness. It was a 90% homogeneous community; everyone was the same as everyone else. The difficulty with being raised in this type of environment is not just the incredible sameness of one's surroundings, but more that the tiniest variation away from the norm is enlarged so dramatically that the community reaction can border on lunacy. You do NOT want to be known as "different" in this kind of community. Conformity was the rule. It was a line drawn around a magic societal circle, out of which it was very difficult to step.

Thus, I was probably 15, having moved from this rural setting to a Chicago suburb, when I first encountered anyone other than Quite White. It was astonishing, to say the least; not only was I confronting a new high school and the general agony of adolescence, but with diversity thrown into the mix it was a melange of excitement, curiosity, confusion, exoticism tinged with eroticism, and dread.

The gigantic high school I attended had been the scene, only a year or two before, of actual honest to goodness race riots. Perhaps a good many of the stories that were told about that time were apocryphal, but enough of them were believable enough, thrilling and debasing enough, to have been true.

That time was my first experience with any type of Otherness, the first occasion where I had a black girlfriend through the Drama Club, a Korean friend through English class, and a half Japanese half American boyfriend.

I do not know, to this day, what kind of insults or indignities these friends may have suffered during the course of their lives based on ingrained prejuidices about race or ethnic background.

Because it didn't happen to me.

That changed when I married Mr. Fresh Hell nine years ago. He's from Algeria, for all intents and purposes Arab, although his education, demeanor, mindset and looks are distinctly more European.

Since then, and especially since September 11th [which we, as New Yorkers, personally experienced], I'm still somewhat astonished to be on the receiving end of such abysmal ignorance about other races and cultures that at times I'm surprised I can pull my jaw up from the floor.

Conversation between me and my [then] boss, who is highly educated and at the time held a very serious international position in a major international adevertising agency, about my upcoming marriage:

Me: Hey, Quisling, guess what? Mr. FH and I got engaged and are getting married - so, I just put in vaction time for the second week in January for the wedding.

Q: Congratulations! That's great! Oh, Mr. FH. Where is he from again?

Me: Algeria.

Q: Is he black?

Me: [crickets chirping in the silence] Um. No. He's from ALGERIA, you know, the coast of North Africa. He's actually pretty pale, although he has black hair.

Q: Oh. I guess I was thinking of Nigeria.

Me: [backing off slowly]. Yeah, I guess.

I've gotten a lot of questions over the years, and many more since 2001. Many questioners show a healthy curiosity, a true attempt at understanding; there are some that are egregiously stupid and uninformed. The former I answer seriously and at length, or apply a sense of humor as needed [Yes, he is quite like the Soup Nazi -No, I didn't have to convert to his religion because he doesn't believe in religion, he believes in science]; the latter I either answer shortly or don't reply to at all.

It's the spectre of Otherness that falls, by association, at my door, and without the accumulation of a lifetime of experience with Otherness and all it entails, I'm so often exasperated by its presence and by its persistence.

I've certainly developed empathy towards those who have always had to explain themselves in an often futile attempt to educate others to see beyond shallow notions of color or ethnicity.

Thankfully, I no longer reside in the Land of Incredible Whiteness, but I still feel it's important to do my part as Honorary Diplomat to Otherness and erradicate ignorance when I encounter it.

There are differences among races and cultures but more importantly, it's the simililarities that brand us all as human.

Would that we could all see ourselves as first that.