Originally Posted by MNBikeguy

Congratulations Ralph. You are the ideal that we all aspire to.
While you appear to have a white light emanating from your head, and are ascending to the heavens, the rest of us have to contend with that nasty bit of reality called "human nature".

I would find it extremely difficult to live in your racist free vacuum. Rather than purging yourself from all instances of "racial slight", I would invite you to look at it from a different perspective.

The only control you have is of your own behavior. You can choose to "dismiss" (as you have with Ryan), "run" (as you did in your workplace example), or educate by word, deed and example (as 10wheels has graciously done with Ryan). With the latter, everybody wins.