Dixie!

If you set out to find people who are not racist, carry a big flashlight. Fear of difference (which leads to racism) is part of the human condition. Everyone of every color is, to some degree, a racist. 

People harmed by racism sometimes tell us that we will never end racism.  Good people don't want to hear that, but it is, as far as I can tell, true. 

I can't completely escape being racist, but I can resist it. We can be racists who fight against racism. Alcoholics fight against being alcoholic. We can become aware of who we are and what we are doing. We may always be racist, and we can always resist racism.

This brings to mind a turbulent school district in Marin County named Dixie. Some say that the district was named Dixie by a Confederate sympathizer in 1864. That could be right. I don't know what really happened.

Others say that the district was named for a Miwok Indian, Mary Dixie, (whose descendants today are named Dixie). The argument might be about whether to change the name of those descendants. Is their Miwok name racially insensitive? Or is the argument about changing the name of Mary Dixie? Or changing the nickname of the Confederacy? Or should they change the name of the school district? Should we change the name of the Mason-Dixon Line? Or erase possible evidence that a Miwok woman once mattered?

One of the Miwok Dixies, Marge Grow-Eppard, told the school board that she "did not realize my family's name was so offensive." And "I don't see no confederate flags here. You're going to change Mary Dixie's name, you dishonor all of us."