We all know our country faces plenty of challenges. The economy. The role of the world’s watchdog. Health care. The environment. We will debate them all, and then some, plenty this year.
But yesterday I realized – none of them matter.
Let me explain.
Yesterday I visited the local gym for the first time. I forgot my iPod, but was content enough to thumb through my Blackberry’s screens.  About three treadmills to my right was a group of three women – two younger and one middle-aged, who apparently work out together regularly.
One of the younger one mentions visiting her boyfriend’s mother in a local nursing home. She had not been to the facility in several years, but was not happy about the changes, and the resulting level of care. What was different, the other women wondered out loud.
“Ghet-to!!” the exasperated girl said, with great emphasis.

As you probably know, or could guess, “ghetto” is a not-to-subtle way for white people to say there is an influx of black people.  I thought maybe the “conversation” would stall there. But they were just getting started.

• “The level of care there has so deteriorated,” said the first girl. “The workers – they seem to be there just for a paycheck – no bedside manner.”
• “I hate to even ask,” the middle-aged woman said, “but how many white people were working there?”
Okay, big tip her folks. If you start a sentence with “I hate to even ask” — it’s a pretty good sign that, in fact, you should not ask. Whatever is on your mind. Don’t say it. Don’t write it on a piece of paper. Move on.
• “Not a one,” the girl said. “It was all blacks. They just want their paychecks and to go home.”

Okay, here is where I thought two things.  1. Newt Gingrich would be so proud of our local “blacks” – they actually want a paycheck, not “entitlement” to foodstamps. 2. I wondered what this girl did for a living and if she approached it with such zeal that she forgot she even was owed a paycheck at the end of the week. I would guess not.
• “I hate to even say it….” the middle-aged woman said. “But the black people; they seem to know all about their ancestors, their relatives, and they almost operate out of anger. Like it’s time for payback.”
Again if you “hate to even say it” you shouldn’t.  And to take the customer service levels of workers at a nursing home to the level of “they’re paying us back for slavery” seems a bit racist to me. Okay, it seems overwhelmingly racist to me, but like going from Point A to Point T.  And, by the way, slavery is a pretty good reason to “operate out of anger,” though I don’t in the least bit agree with her.
• “She just had a stroke, and I figured someone should turn her over to make her more comfortable. I knew what she needed, so I took her outside for a cigarette. Can’t someone, anyone, take her out front to have a cigarette.”

I would like to think this was one random conversation in one gym. Or even that my town somehow was this pocket of ignorance. I let it go for a few hours.

Then on Tuesday night, I saw U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at the President’s State of the Union. I remembered the horrific events of over a year ago. And how there were calls for a toned-down rhetoric in our politics, in our lives. In how we treated each other.  It’s as if we listened to each other that week and intentionally carried ourselves in the opposite manner afterwards.
Forget politics. Back to my original point. None of the issues to be debated this year even matter.

As long as white people in Indiana describe a nursing home staffed by African-Americans as “ghetto.” As long as we dismiss “normal” Muslims as the exception, rather than the rule. As long as we believe in the same God, but dispatch other religions to hell for holding different beliefs. As long as we treat those who don’t believe in God differently. As long as we instantly judge an Indian by his pigmentation, a Frenchman for his accent, a southerner by his Confederate flag.
If we cannot even manage that, how can we possibly move forward on the issues that affect us all, have conversations about who in our society should be helped, ignored, or taxed more by our government.
You can have your Newt. Your Obama. Even your Paul. It won’t matter.

If “ghetto” comes from your lips to describe another person, we’ll never have the kind of discussion that  will move our country forward. We’ll all be in living in the ghetto – the ghetto of the mind – and there ain’t no government program that can help us then.