Back in my thirties, I spent two summer months --- most of every afternoon and some evenings --- with my departed friend, Maurice, a Black man who came out of the Black Christian South to advanced degrees and a career as a math teacher and musician in the north. And I got to experience the complete man, his history, his outlook on the society, his musical talent, his doubles partnership in tennis, and ultimately his love, as one of my two closest friends of that era of my life. The fact that I still miss Maurice today, that my gut tightens up, that I feel the love when I bring him to mind is evidence of how significant was that expansion of my consciousness; I never again looked at another Black man in that old shitty way of my childhood. This is task one. Task two is to realize that Homo sapiens is far from the only intelligent species on the planet. Bacterium to Bonobo, they all are.