I'm confused. Why didn't you get in the pool? What happened, aside from your musings, that made you decide not to get in, to instead swim in the "more private" pool. What exactly is the "enduring racial injury in America" -- that when you see a pool, you see the past instead of the present?

The Phoenix airport is called Sky Harbor. Only one terminal is named after Barry Goldwater, who, if one takes the time to get the facts, was totally committed to racial equality. He forced the integration of the Arizona National Guard at a time when this was considered revolutionary.

I have lived in Arizona and have made many business trips there since. Introducing the Mexican issue is only to muddy the water, since illegal immigration impacts all the citizens of the US.

As you offer no factual basis for your feelings at the pool, I must conclude that either you are prone to borrow trouble, or you are determined to create racial discord out of thin air.

Have a nice day!-

Feelings are not based in fact, hojoo710. If you read Ms. Walker's column with a compassionate eye, an intention to learn something of another's experience, to understand another person's perspective, you would have very different questions.

Your questions indicate that you are not interested in changing your understanding of the world, or your feelings about it either. For those of us who are, who are willing to enter the world a writer portrays for us, to feel as best we can another's experience, this column had a deeper effect.

I wonder if someone you have loved has ever told you a similar story, and if so, did you react the same way? I wouldn't expect you to walk a mile in Ms. Walker's shoes, but you might spend some time sitting next to someone who is wearing them, and listening to the stories of that person's journey.

Do you have the courage to see what that would feel like?

Actually, Judy, I think I agree with hojoo710 a bit. It felt like the "enduring racial injury" in this instance was Ms. Walker deciding the white people would have issue with her getting in the pool, which is making quite an assumption about the people around her without a single spec of evidence. What was "absurd" in this piece of writing was Ms. Walker's assumptions, not anyone else's feelings or actions with regard to race. I understood, I think, her seeing the pool as what it used to be, and somehow wondering if it is still an element of divide -- but as a metaphor. To actually not get into the pool because she was busy thinking -- what -- about the white people around her... well, way to give us white people a chance, huh?

She didn't get in the pool so she'll never no, but I've just gone down to a pool and the white people left!

Ms. Martin, is that a joke or are you being serious? If you're being serious, now that's a story I'd like to hear.

Ya know, I gotta say...I'm a black gay woman in an interracial relationship and I'm sorry, but Ms. Walker hit on something, I think. I live in New York, and I STILL look around to see the lay of the land, even in this city.  "Is it okay to be open? Is it okay to be black? Is it okay to hold hands?" The racial injury Ms. Walker refers to is her own -- because once you've been in one of these situations, it's hard to forget to be self-protective. In being with someone who is white, I still marvel over the ease she has in moving through this country racially. I'd take my experience over hers, but it's still fascinating to me.

While agree, it may seem like Ms. Walker is just living in the past sense she didn't bother to jump in to test the waters, so to speak, I do know where she is coming from. As people of color, we are certainly not facing the intensity of racism our forefathers weathered, but it is still there, and it is not just in our mind. We do have a different experience than Whites. I think Edith says it well. We do have to consider things that don't even occur to white counterparts.  I just heard about a gay couple, one white and one black who on separate occasions went to a police precinct to report vandalism on their property. When the Black man showed up to make his complaint, the police inquired why he was reporting the vandalism and asked if he was the super. This happened in a neighborhood with a legacy of Black home ownership. This JUST happened, and in the Northeast.  Another example... I live in Connecticut  (and not in an urban city mind you) and one day this past summer my husband was returning home from the barber shop with my our two  sons, a toddler and a tween, in the back seat. He notices a police car following him, but he was pretty near home so he just kept on driving, By the time he pulls up in front of our home, two more cars pull up. Lights flashing and the whole bit. My husband had done nothing but drive while black. As it turns out, the only thing the police could say when they took his license and registration is we thought you were someone else. He had committed no traffic offense, he has no record of any type, there was nothing suspicious about the vehicle. Nothing.  And this is not the first time something like this has happened to someone we know in this town and other towns. I know middle class white folks don't have to sit their  Honor Roll kids down and talk to them about how to deal with the police. We are amazed that we have to do that, but we know that there are going to be times where they ARE judged by the color of their skin. Recently my teenage daughter attended a small sweet 16 sleepover at a hotel. The girls, all girls of color, went down to the pool to swim. When they walked in, they got the looks and then when they jumped in, the white people in the pool got out. It does happen.

I'm sorry you hesitate in this America, though I can understand it.  Even if they had gotten out of the pool, as hard as it may have been on you personally, you should not let that affect you.

Also, if the whites had gotten out of the pool please consider that they may have gotten out for any number of reasons other than a black woman had entered the pool.  Don't find slight were none exists.  And take heart Tenzin is in a better America that is improving as the younger generations come along.  The anachronistic old farts are fading away. :-)