I'm a white male 40 years old and have lived in small towns in NC all my life. When a good friend of mine at work was talking to me about racial situations and the things he had witnessed it floored me( he is black, 53 years old and grew up in a small SC town). We were dicussing Obama and the fact that he didn't believe he would have ever seen this day come. Growing up I heard the n word used but I never witnessed anyone calling a black person that to his face so I couldn't believe the stories he told me about how one human can treat another human that way simple because of his skin color. The first thing he told me how growing up he would go swimming in the river with his friends and the white people made them stay down stream, if any of his friends got in upstream the white people would get out. He also told me that his friend got bitten by a white persons dog and they were made to apologize to the owner for doing that to his dog. And finally how about his mother's social security card had the white guys name on it above his mothers that she worked for( she was his housekeeper). He showed it to me and if I hadn't seen it for myself, I don't think I would believe it. I'm not trying to start controversy, just to let others know the way humans can treat others right here in the US. There where many others things he told me, just too many to share. What amazes me is, that he holds no hard feelings toward anyone. He is a great person and I'm glad to call him my friend.