I thought this poem was interesting because the author seems to have strong beliefs, but there is a distinct difference between what he thinks and what he does. He could have demeaned her history but comparing it to his much longer history, one that was in place long before hers, but he does not “because she smiled so much and seemed delighted that I thought to bring her an orange juice back from the food car.” This reasoning is also in direct contrast to his next statement where he says, “I respect elders of every color,” because clearly he does not respect her in the way he describes her as a naïve and uninformed woman. He spends most of the poem wanting to tell her off, but in the end he can only muster to make “plans for what I would do and say the next time/somebody from the enemy thought I was one of them.”