I was the only white person in the treadmill room at the Y yesterday evening, pretty typical for our wonderfully diverse Downtown YMCA in Birmingham. The television was turned to the news, and as we all listened to the madness of recent events, I listened to my friends around me react and discuss- men whose parents and grandparents very well could have been a part of the Civil Rights Movement here in our city that was Ground Zero for so much of that sad time in our nation’s history. A few minutes later, a Jewish man came and stood in front of the tv, listing earnestly. What must they be thinking? How must all of this make them feel?

I had gone to a rural middle school earlier that morning to help new beginning band students try the clarinet to determine if it would be a good match for them…