Bigotry or Common Sense?

When I was younger, and we saw a man walking alongside the road, my mother would instinctively lock the door. In all my adolescent smugness, I would silently wonder why she did that. What had that person done to her? Was she locking the doors because the person was another race? Because he was a man? Aren't we supposed to love and trust one another? What kind of message was she giving us, her daughters?

Now that I'm a mother, I find myself doing the same thing. I wonder if it's just something I learned, or if it's a truly mommy-inherited fight-or-flight mechanism.

I suppose the right thing to do is lock my doors as soon as I get in the car, but I never think about it. But what kind of a message am I sending to my daughter? Only trust people that don't have to walk where they are going? All pedestrians are evil?

I hate how when we get in our cars, we feel as though we are in our own mini-fortresses, and the rest of the world is composed of idiots. If I met a person face to face, I would say hello or give them a smile. But on the road, we say or at least think things that we would never dream of saying or thinking in closer proximity. Why is that?