In my experience—and I admit I didn't anticipate this—most blacks are delighted to have a 100-percent honest conversation with a white man about race.

To be sure, the story of Hurricane Katrina does have a moral for anyone not deliberately blind. The races are different. Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization-any kind of civilization-disappears.

Most whites do not have a racial identity, but they would do well to understand what race means for others. They should also ponder the consequences of being the only group for whom such an identity is forbidden and who are permitted no aspirations as a group.

I want my grandchildren to look like my grandparents. I don't want them to look like Anwar Sadat or Foo Man Chu or Whoopi Goldberg.