Minority report

I was in an interview last week when the question came from nowhere: "How do you feel about minorities?"\nOf course, my first impulse was to make a joke. "Oh, I'm definitely against them."\nBut then I realized the two women were serious.\nA fast thinker, I knew I couldn't revert to tokenism. Saying something like, "I have black friends," would sound hollow. I figured my interviewers would only be slightly more impressed if I offered to prove I'd dated people of many different races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.\nSuddenly, I heard a fife and drum in the back of my mind, and my chest swelled with pride. I grew up the gay son of a Baptist preacher man in a family that's been Republican since the Civil War, in a town of 950 souls in the middle of a cornfield.\nI was a survivor, damn it! I'd made it through high school without cutting myself or being lashed to a fencepost and pistol-whipped. I'd done my tour of duty, and I had the merit badge to prove it.\nThen my heart sank. I'm almost 25, for Christ's sake. High school is ancient history, so by now my gay survivor merit badge would just look like a neatly embroidered chip on my shoulder.\nConsidering I grew up in Crackerville, I've come so far since then.\nEveryone in my hometown was white. There were no Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists or Hindus. I never met a Jew before college. Well, except for two adorable brothers in my Baptist middle school, but they were Jews for Jesus, so they don't count.\nBut I've made a conscious effort to learn. I've read over and again the histories of different civil rights leaders. I even listen to Martin Luther King Jr. while I'm on the treadmill. (Nothing says "Move your fat ass!" like "We Shall Overcome.")\nI've worked hard to understand. I've asked friends and colleagues what it was like for them growing up with their faiths, their families, their races. I've put myself into their shoes, sought to embrace their difference and see the world through their eyes.\nThe entire reason I came to law school was because I was horrified at the way the government treated Arab-Americans after Sept. 11, and the way it treated African-Americans, immigrants and homosexuals all the time. Why in the world couldn't my interviewers see how much I cared?\nThen my guilty mind kicked in. What had I ever done to show I cared? Were they supposed to infer my bleeding heart from my ACLU membership? I couldn't think of a single time I'd ever done anything firsthand to help someone different from me. My self-confidence was demolished.\nHow do I feel about minorities? I don't know. I care, but do I care enough? Will I keep caring when it's all dollars and cents and billable hours?\nI walked away from the interview certain of only one thing: My chances of getting that job were a "discrete and insular minority" in themselves.