Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. ~Dennis Leary

I had the most unnerving experience last night. I believe I was the subject of racism.

I'm white. I'm a woman. I'm an American of Polish and French descent. You might need to know that before you read ahead.

I pulled into a parking space at Buffalo Wild Wings. There was a car on my left; none on my right. My mini-van needed to be straightened out, so I put the car in reverse.

The passenger in the car on my left started to open the door. I stopped backing out; ripping off their car door didn't sound like much fun to me. The woman closed the door, then rolled down her window to throw out some garbage. (We can tackle littering in some future blog, but not today.)

So I straightened my car. As I took the keys out of the ignition, the driver leaned towards the passenger window and started yelling something at me. I couldn't hear, so started to roll down my window. This was just in time to hear, '..., you prejudiced white bitch!'.

I got out of the car then. I've pissed plenty of people off in my day, and not always on purpose, but did not have a clue what I'd done. So I asked, 'What did I do?' (I can be pretty smooth sometimes.)

She answered, 'You heard me, you honky white bitch!. Then she slowly drove away, throwing daggers at me with her eyes. Ouch. OUCH.

My husband and friend Sue have reminded me there's nothing I can do now, and even then, I couldn't have changed her perception of me. I understand that.

But that doens't mean I don't want to. I want to bridge gaps, not create chasms. I'm the not-very-bright person who was shocked to hear some whites wouldn't vote for Obama because he's black. I refused to go to Junior prom because I wasn't allowed to go with a black male friend. Extended family hid my keys in Indiana to stop me from going to protest a KKK rally.

My son is part black.

The sadness is that I could tell all of this to the women I encountered last night, and it wouldn't do any good. What they accused me of, they practiced-live and on me.

To anyone ready to pounce on me for this, I am fully aware that this is how millions of blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc., have experienced for millenia, and often much more violently. I can think of no sentence to type that will accurately express my sorrow, sympathy, repulsion at the horror, and solidarity I feel.

But it sure is different when it happens to you, you don't know why, and you can't reason with the racist standing next to you.

God help me find more ways to bridge these gaps. Oops-I almost prayed...