Drink the Bitter Root. Gary Geddes

I stood in line in my stocking feet, I felt vulnerable, insignificant and ashamed of my paltry record as a champion of human rights: too much time at the desk, too little in the arena facing the lions. If it were me rather than my luggage passing in front of the X-ray, I thought, the screen would be blank. When my turn came to surrender bags, shoes, belt and computer to security personnel, I was waved through, as if to confirm my sense of being invisible. Only later did it occur to me that I might have benefited from the last remnant of a whites-first colonial hangover.