Most of my childhood was in the 1940s, a time when all neighborhoods were separated by ethnicity, mostly according to color. Blacks, then known as either colored or negro, not only lived in their own designated neighborhoods, I believe they had to by law.

We lived two houses down from the street serving as the color-line boundary, and all of my primary-grade playmates were Black. Corty's father (Tommy Bell) was the WWII interim welterweight boxing champion of the world while SUgar Ray Robinson was in the Army, and is considered an all-time boxing great. But he couldn't afford regular drinking glasses for his family, so when we were over for dinner we all drank from sawed-off tin cans.

Mexican Americans decided to be either Spanish or, the lighter ones like famous boxers Art Aragon and Vince Martinez referred to themselves as Italian.

The town I lived in as a teenager was said to have had a law prohibiting Blacks to be within the city limits affter sundown.

These were realities during my youth, and I doubt that such attitudes disappear into thin air simply because we've entered new era.

We can only change such attitudes by facing them head-on. And your poignant article helps to push us in that direction. Thank you, Jeffrey.