Neighborhood in the inter-racial zone

This past weekend I rediscovered why I love the neighborhood in Chicago where I live. It's a neighborhood that was formerly Italian, but now has an inter-racial and inter-class mix of old Italian-American families,  loft-dwelling yuppies, Black and Latino young families, students, and me. It's a neighborhood where people hang out at the stores and the shop keepers know you by sight, if not by name.

So this weekend, I went to my local hardware store, where the Italian-American owner in his 50s, and his Irish (40s) and Italian-American friends (60s) were discussing the election. The owner asked me whether I thought that "the blacks," which he apologized for using but he did not know the correct term, was only voting for Obama because he was black. I thus explained the complexity of black America's relationship with Barack Obama. Later a man of Mexican origin joined, and  we all ended up having a pointed but substantive conversation about reparations (we were all against, but for different reasons), whether racism was better now or in the past (most said now, the shop owner said in the past), who has the highest IQ Condoleezza Rice or Oprah (Oprah has a higher emotional IQ, Condi has higher analytical IQ), and about the state of the world today.

Afterwards, we were all amazed by the fact that we could have such a intelligent and in-depth discussion about such delicate topics without anyone getting offended or upset. It made me think that things are much better in the US regarding race relations.