Last week I had two insights about race in the world around me. I doubt either of them is particularly original, but it was enough to make me think.

The first was during a lunch with an old friend. I’ve known him for fifty years, and I know he’s not a racist. I’ve observed him liking, disliking, admiring, and loathing people without regard to race, creed, color, or sexual identity. I’ve also seen him go out of his way to help a number of people who were not of his racial persuasion.

In the fifty years we’ve been talking, debating, and arguing, he’s moved further and further to the right, and sometimes our luncheon conversations scare the waitresses and cause people in nearby booths to sink down in their seats. But the fact that we disagree doesn’t keep us from being friends and enjoying our occasional lunches.

At this one, in the middle of our discussion of the Republican budget bill, he looked at me and said:

“One of these days you’ll realize that all those old boys back where we came from were right. They are different from us.”

My immediate response was “So what?”, but later I realized that there was a lesson in that.

The lesson was that even if we’re not racists, we think racially. That means that I will might respond differently to a someone of a different race than someone of my own, even under exactly the same conditions. It’s the old story about people crossing the street to avoid large black men, but it’s carried out in a hundred subtle ways. It’s reflexive, the product of our conditioning.

It would be comforting to say that our racial conditioning informs our responses. But it would be wrong. “Inform” implies that it helps us make more accurate assessments and react more properly. But that’s not the case; it influences our assessments and reactions. And I can’t imagine that all of the subtle differences in our actions go unnoticed by those on the other end of them.

The line between being racist and thinking racially is indistinct, and it’s probably set by the person who experiences our action.

The day after my lunch with my friend I attended my granddaughter’s fifth-grade graduation. She goes to an extremely diverse elementary school; it’s like a Tower of Babel with a large English-as-a-Second-Language class. The program was full of names like Aguilar, Ashihel, Aybar, Xia, Jovanovic, Kabir, Machacuay, Zhang, and Soun, along with names such as Harper, Harrington, Benfield, and Brown.

The school does well in statewide competitions, with teams reaching the state in reading, science, and other “bowls.”

Their science fair projects go well beyond building the traditional papier-mâché volcano. When they presented the certificates to the science fair winners, I could admire their efforts, but I had no idea what most of them had done. One of them had to with green beans.

It is, by almost any standard, a successful school. And in the cafetorium that morning there was a lot of enthusiasm, a good bit of nostalgia, and constant reminders that these students were entering a new stage in their life and education.

In her opening remarks, the principal said that the kids had brainstormed the attributes that they thought they should be remembered for, and when she read the list, you could tell that they were pleased with what they were (or wanted to be). The list included the following: smart, funny, joyous, energetic, happy and four or five other equally positive qualities. I noticed that they didn’t include “accepting.” I thought that, given that there were a so many kids that “were different from us,” acceptance would be a large and positive thing.

But as I watched them march across the stage, get their certificates and awards, and hug the principal, I had my second insight: these kids didn’t need to add “acceptance” to their list of positives. They were beyond that.

To say that you “accept” something or someone implies the power to reject that same thing. There is still an imbalance of power. In the world in which my granddaughter lives, the difference in race and ethnic origin is simply a matter of fact, on a par with hair color and right or left handedness.

These are kids who can not only pronounce a name like Xia or Zacahua-Varela with no problem, but will shout it loudly when that student’s picture comes up on the screen. They probably wouldn’t understand all of the things that were going through my mind as I watched them get their awards.

And, for that, I am truly thankful.

When I was a small child, I was taught that “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.” With luck, these children may get to actually live that.

Unless, of course, we older people change their minds.