I went on a long walk last night, as I do most nights that I am not swimming laps. Usually on these walks I make some phone calls. My number one person that I call is my mother. She can be a doozy some days and last night was one of those days. I asked her how she was doing and she said she was mad at blacks. (She is from the old school when we used to call people blacks because they had black skin and we called white people white because… well… you know why.)

I asked her why she was mad at blacks. She said that she had gone to get her blood drawn and a negro (like I said she is old school) had tried to draw her blood at least two to three times and had not been able to hit a vein. He had called another woman in to try and she had not been able to hit a vein either.

The woman, I am assuming, was white, yet I noticed that she didn’t say she was mad at all white women because the white woman had not gotten her vein. She was just mad at the blacks because a negro man had not been able to find her vein.

I told her that I had had problems with people finding my veins also. She admitted she was a hard stick. She had had one white female nurse who stuck her so many times she had gotten a blood clot. I remember her telling me about this when it happened but she didn’t say she was mad at all white women because of this unfortunate even. Yet she was mad at blacks because a negro man had not hit her vein with the needle, even though he had stopped before he had caused a blood clot.

I tried to follow her thinking to discern whether there was any logic in this train of thought. I know that my mother has been very fond of some blacks. In fact she recently hired a young black female to help her garden and she practically oozed adoration when she talked about her. So I don’t think on a normal day she has much prejudice.

I could not locate any logical reason for her to be mad at blacks because one African American man had not gotten the blood draw that he had attempted to obtain. My mother at times can be a bit unreasonable.

When I thought about this I realized that this is how I feel about people in general who have prejudice against a race, color of skin or culture. People who carry prejudice on their shoulders are just not logical or reasonably sane people. I pity them far more than the people they are prejudiced against.