That caller who called in was correct, but the way he dealt with his own prejudice was not commendable, and I doubt he acknowledged his own prejudice which his call made readily apparent for all to hear.

Bias is derived from French and means, roughly, “slanted.” Generally speaking, it is having some general feeling towards or against a subject – whether it is person or food or what have you. No one – white, black, or otherwise – can get through life without having biases. One of the first things I teach students about social research is to be aware of their own biases. It's something that sneaks into everything we do – even how we define what we are doing.

Prejudice is derived from Latin and means “pre-judged.” Like bias, it is a general feeling about something or someone, but it is usually taken to mean a specifically negative attitude towards the subject. In general, a prejudice is thought of as not having any basis in fact – though the human mind can always twist evidence around and justify just about anything.

A stereotype is an expectation of behavior based on some class membership. They can be negative or positive. Racism is a specific example of stereotyping that contributes negative behaviors to inherent group characteristics. Like biases, we could not function without stereotypes – we generally use them without even thinking. To the extent that groups exist in our minds, we create (or adopt) stereotypes to describe what sets them apart. Stereotypes, by the way, are not necessarily bad things. They can just as easily be positive.

I wouldn't say that your example of the slow driver is an example of prejudice. It seems more like an example of stereotyping. It may or may not rise to the level of racism – I honestly can't tell from this small example. If it is, then it's at the lower end of the scale. When I get stuck behind a slow driver, I just get irritated because they're slow – I don't think at all if they are Asian or Hispanic or what not. So, I would ask you this: Why consider the group characteristics of the driver at all?

After the unqualified success of requiring all senior citizen drivers to pre-identify themselves by only driving white Cadillac sedans (exception is made for Jewish widows…they may purchase red ones), we have extended the pre-identification safety system on the roadways to now also require:

-young black and Hispanic men may only acquire Honda Civics (acquisition by theft is an allowed option given their challenged environment). So as not to mistakenly pre-identify any white Anglos who have not yet converted to the new system, we further require that upon acquisition, the young black or Hispanic male must immmediately convert to an after-market muffler system that makes the exhaust sound like a kazoo. This allows pre-identification for at least 2 city blocks away which immeasurably increases the safety of female senior citizens who may be carrying a purse nearby.

-single white women below 30 years of age may only drive Jettas or another Volkswagen product.

-young black men that succeed in South Florida's rap music industry are required to upgrade to Escalades with levels of window tinting that are unlawful for other drivers. However, since affluent white surburbanites are allowed to drive most any car of their choice, the rapsters must also immediately convert their tires to side profiles of 1 inch or less as well as installing wheel spinner hubcaps lest the occasional surburbanite be mistaken for this drug-assisted driver.

-we have no significant Asian/Southeast Asian residential population down here as they are generally allowed no further south than the Orlando area and for visits of two weeks or less.

-unfortunately, all systems are prone to the occasional failure. Previously, we had pre-identified all European drivers by using a license plate numbering system that identified the vehicle as a rental car. While it worked fine on the roadway system, unfortunately, it also pre-identified them to the community of young black and Hispanic men looking for money to acquire their Honda Civics with.

-our largest problem is fine-tuning the preidentification system for all the Latin American and/or Carribean immigrant drivers. At this point, these drivers cannot master the driver's licensing exam, so we do not yet have a good handle on how many of them there are as we cannot simply count up licenses issued with Opa Locka and little Haiti street addresses. However, an informal system is starting to emerge as a fairly reliable alternative…….it seems these drivers are incapable of any reasonable amount of pedal control…….therefore, either the 30 in the 65…or the 65 in the 30…….combined with 3 lane changes within each block traveled…..yields a 90% certainty the car is driven by an individual who emigrated from either of these areas.

You may be wondering how us rich, bigoted white guys deal with all this? Fortunately, the Army Corps of Engineers built us a wonderful waterway system and we just travel where we need to by boat.

Client meeting. Lawyer, stockbroker or hustler talk. Too cheap to hire a driver. Thinks too much. Fucking Jew. How's that for beating your bs?

The first of these options was that the driver could have been a Southeast Asian woman.

I would only make that assumption if the car was a late German sedan and the plates said NJ.

What I'm trying to say is that your explanation for *why* you thought the driver of the slow-moving car might be Hispanic or South Asian has nothing per se to do with the immutability of their ethnicity; it has to do with the external circumstances of their lives. And what's interesting to me, also, is that in *both* instances, the circumstances have to do with fear — fear on the part of the slow-moving driver, that is. They are fearful of getting in an accident or being stopped by the police, not because they are Hispanic or South Asian in and of itself, but because they live in a specific cultural community that frowns on women leaving their homes, or because they live in fear of being caught by government authorities because they are undocumented.

One reason I am struck by what you wrote is that I can identify, on a personal level, with the Hispanic drivers' fear of being stopped by the police. In my case, it's not because I am not a U.S. citizen. It's because when I had a car (which I don't anymore, because it was repossessed), I drove for many, many months without car insurance — because my policy had been cancelled because I couldn't pay the premiums (I live in New Jersey, so you know how high they were). I certainly know how to drive, am very comfortable driving, and more than that, I really love to drive (I miss having a car!), so it wasn't about fearing any lack in my own skills. But for those months, whenever I went out in the car, I would be intensely, *intensely* aware of following the rules of the road *to the letter.* I came to a full stop at Stop signs (like, who does that?), drove the speed limit, always signaled, and became even more cautious whenever I saw a police car. And I saw them all the time, probably noticing them more than most people who weren't always driving scared.

So, even though this is about my personal financial situation and has nothing to do with being white, or Jewish, or middle-aged, or whatever, I really identified, and I think that it's very perceptive of you, Patrick, to be aware of the legitimate reasons some drivers might have to be driving slowly, even though it's hard not to get annoyed.

1. If everything's racism, nothing's racism. The more liberally you hand out guilty verdicts, the more you trivialize the crime and cheapen the huge accomplishments we've made against genuine racism.

2. No one can get through a day without making a thousand assumptions. Driving requires plenty.

3. Life is too short for KGO.

Do these two examples qualify?