Thank you for a very enlightening article. Throughout my life, I have found more affinity with black neighbors and co-workers than with many from my own race. I never understood why this was, but assumed it was because I grew up in an economically depressed area of Pennsylvania. My mother and father grew up during the Great Depression, and both worked hard just to keep our home and get me educated. Before they were married, my father had traveled around the world as a Merchant Marine during WW2 and my mother worked in a Dress Factory. Both of them saw the effects that abject poverty and alcoholism can have on families of any race or ethnic background. I never heard them speak ill of anyone, and I followed their example. Perhaps, that is why I found such unexpected acceptance from black people.