Interruptions

At the end of a day long meeting today, November 11, 2011, I was packing up  and about to head out the car with my stuff and head home. I had arranged for the location of the statewide meeting and also for the breakfast and the lunch catering.  We had set up groups for follow through activities after we left.  I picked Media and Messaging as did another person, along with Mark D. The two of us began talking near the exit from the room at the college.  This was the only group with just three people in it.  The other person is a lawyer living in Bufalo, making two reasons at least why I wanted us to converse a bit before we parted, the lawyer part and the Buffalo part as I graduated from the University at Buffalo law school, along with our being on the same team.
A woman with an accent inserted herself into our conversation.  Neither the team member nor myself resisted her interruption. Making some comment about a "fracking contract" and how having a mortgage would be a way to release you from a "fracking contract" (i.e. gas lease), she was insistent.  I had no wish to speak with her and took off to pick up my stuff and leave the room (especially as I was the last out).  The team member and the interrupter were now in the foyer of the lecture hall.  I later wondered why she thought what she wanted to say was more important that what the man and I were saying to each other.  Yet another instance to ask the question: "Is it rudeness or racism?"