Your Neighbor's Name

I love being invited to classrooms and speaking to students. Our book talk discussions can get pretty deep sometimes, and often jumps off-topic into the students’ personal lives.


Current news events, such as the recent bomb scare, and race relations in America are usual topics discussed during these meet-the-author sessions. I often learn a lot from these bright young minds, and I’m always honored when the students ask me for advise or my opinion about certain things.


Recently, after reading my novel ’29 Dimes’ as a class assignment, which has the undertone of race relations, several students wanted to know my thoughts on how America could improve its race relations. I told the students that I love this particular question because my response is always the same, which is, “Just simply get to know your neighbors, get to know your neighbor’s name.”


Too often, we only describe our neighbors as “the lady who drives the red car”, “the old man with the blue pickup”, “the family up the street with the mixed kid”, etc.


I further explain to the class that getting to know one another strengthens you and strengthens your neighborhood, your community, etc. (We tend to make bad and wrong assumptions about people when we don’t even make an effort to know them.)


By the way, my neighbors are Donna, Mike, Dennis, and Larry. Have a great day Everyone. – Randolph Randy Camp


More at https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphcamp