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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Ilaine who wrote (47745)7/28/1999 11:30:00 PM
From: Michael M  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
CB -- the country demanded a lot of changes in the South in the 50s and 60s. A right idea but not an easy thing for a lot of people.

I spent an hour visiting my Mother and Father last week at their resting place (Mobile, AL). I thought -- how odd that they spent so much of their lives abroad in the world and now rest a few hundred yards from the streets they played in as children. Streets I wouldn't care to slow down in today.

I had a black nurse/nanny the first few years of my life. My aunt loved to tell the story of Lizzie Coleman collapsing with a heart attack one day and me standing guard beside the old woman trying to beat the crap out of the ambulance guys who came -- screaming at them to stay away from my Lizzie.

My father was not one to ask if he had ever used the "N" word -- more appropriately, had he ever "not" used it. Yet he had no problem with my mother being attended by a black physician (1953) prior to and during the birth of my brother.

I went to high school in the west (60 grad) and there was hardly a black in sight. My best friend was Jack Gardner -- not that you'd know it -- everyone else in school called him "Mau Mau". I took and gave a few on the chin for that deal.

I don't know that there's any point in these personal notes, except to say I don't feel like I owe anyone an apology for their history or mine. Show me what you got and we'll go from there.

Any who think in terms of when "we will overcome," IMO, are doomed to fail. Just forget the barrier and do your best. Not everyone will like you -- some will envy you -- some will hate you. It doesn't matter! When my son and daughter were in high school, I helped coach their track team. I remember my son having the hardest time high jumping more than about 5' 9" -- somehow I got him to pay attention to me for more than the time it takes a 16 year old to roll his eyeballs, and got him to buy into literally forgetting the crossbar. Once he focused on what he was doing v. staring at the barrier he was clearing almost six and a half feet almost instantly.

I bet those disadvantaged kids with the substandard books, teachers and facilities were learning a hell of a lot more than the District kids of today.

Blue, I have no answers. I think the questions are getting tougher.
I don't think there's much forthright and useful discussion. Everyone's intimidated by the possibility of being called "racist."
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