Last Night

On the last night of my four years as an undergraduate student, I find myself sitting by myself on a street corner, waiting for a bus to come around and take me home.

The bus would never come.

After chatting over the phone with an old friend, I start walking past the bus stop, and chat idly with a fellow bus-patron, also waiting patiently (more patient than me) for our transportation.

I find out that Gokuhl is from India, studying here in Delaware for his masters in Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management. We start out discussing the bus and its very late schedule. We make our way to India and America, and his opinions on the two. I find out Gokuhl is a foreigner who absolutely loves everything America has to offer, its land rife with opportunity and ambition; this is reassuring to me, someone who is gravely worried about the state of our nation, viewed through the eyes of outsiders.

We decide to ditch the bus and walk back to our neighborhoods together, since we're heading in the same direction, and we doubt we will encounter any other reasonable company for the remainder of the time waiting for the bus (which never actually came).

On our walk back, Gokuhl and I discuss the problems we have with the American Woman, international relations, and racism, a topic I tend to gravitate towards. I hate that racism exists in our country, and, although I can't put my fingers around a specific cause, I am committed to the cause for stopping it altogether. Gokuhl had an interesting take on racism: that it should be accepted by all that it is inherent and innate within/among all of us, that we are all appealing to the differences we have with people around us, and that it should be viewed as a reflection of our society and our people.

This is a view I've never really discussed before. Is racism so common these days that it can be blamed outright on society itself? Is there nothing we can do to prevent or deter people in our society for having this predicament and this predilection towards racism and racist remarks? As I sit here, on the night before my graduation, this is what is running through my mind. This is what I need on graduation for the conferral of my degree, the state of mind that will be conferred along with my diploma, into my life as an educator and as someone who appreciates us all for who we are - individuals and Americans.