An article appeared a few days ago in the Los Angeles Times, in which a baby boomer couple was lamenting that, despite their best efforts, their son had turned out racist. This conclusion was reached when he indicated that he wished to attend UC Santa Barbara--the University of California campus with the most white kids, as he put it.

The article didn't mention names, but revealed that the couple, both teachers, were Jewish, and products of LA's westside.

Leaving aside, for a moment, the background of the boy in question, allow me some observations:

All humans, are, to some extent, tribalistic. We tend to be more comfortable with those people and customs that are familiar to us. Moreover, a great deal of our daily activity involves identifying ourselves as part of a group. Often these groups are competitive with, if not hostile, to other groups.

We can be Democrats or Republicans; we can be UCLA Bruin fans or USC Trojan fans; we can work for Microsoft or Apple; we can be Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, or Jews--with divisions within each of those religions.

We can be labor or management, tennis players or golfers, lovers of classical or popular music, male or female, pro-life or pro-choice, and believers or atheists.

And, yes, even though we are all God's children, we can still be White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, or any one of dozens of other ethnic groups.

Assuming that the young man in question does not hate or discriminate against those of other races, and just prefers to congregate with his own hardly makes him a "racist." If it does, then about 99% of the world's population could be labeled as such.

Of course, for years, race baiters have pressed the boundaries of the definition of this word, mostly for their own economic and political advancement. That's the dark side. Fortunately, there's also a humorous side.

It seems that the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be spending $64,000 to reprint 100,000 application brochures to replace the originals that featured a digitally altered front cover photo. The picture depicted a group of white fans celebrating at a 1993 Wisconsin Badgers game. Since this photo wasn't diverse enough, the head of a black student, Diallo Shabazz, taken from another shot, was inserted into the original.

The re-touching job was quite amateurish, and the deceit was discovered almost immediately. Why no other, more suitable photo was available was never explained. The new cover will feature the school's Memorial Union Terrace at sunset, thus avoiding the issue of how many people of what race should be featured in any group shot.

Ignoring the obvious incompetence and the waste of money, we might ask ourselves just who in this little melodrama is more race obsessed? Is it the university administration worrying about their image (but not as cost-cutters)? Is it the would-be applicants, who, when getting a brochure featuring only white kids on the cover, would be turned off-- as if that were the only criterion one would use to choose a school?

If it is the latter, then those kids are just as "racist" as our UC Santa Barbara boy.

Finally, it must be said that the perspective of that boy's parents is probably quite skewed.

LA's westside during the time that the parents were growing up was anything but diverse. True, there were Hispanics and Asians, but they were safely ensconced well south of Wilshire Boulevard. The district was, and still is, home to most of the limousine liberal crowd, whose only exposure to diversity would be in the movies or photo ops.

There could be valid reasons for the parents to berate themselves, but to attack their own son, disregarding the many differences in their childhood experiences, is both stupid and hypocritical. And, for educators who touch thousands of young lives, to call him racist, a term rendered nearly meaningless these days, is pathetic.