This is one of the times that I think the 15 years I have on you gives us really different POVs. THe 50s and 60s brought such enormous changes for minorities and women that. by comparison, today seems halcyon, an environment that leans far more toward acceptance than exclusion.
I can remember being at the country club with my parents in the 50s and hearing some women talking about the most beautiful Asian woman at a table nearby. They were horrible about her. Later I asked my mother why they were so nasty, and she explained that the Asian woman was married to a bank vice president, but that she would never be accepted in our Southern town because she was- Asian. AND he had probably hurt his career by marrying her. It baffled and horrified me. ANd thankfully, my mother conveyed her total disjust with the prevailing prejudice.
And of course, there were no blacks at all in the club. Except waiting on us.
I grew up with segregated schools until the 9th grade when a black minister from outside was brought in to "break the barrier". His daughter, Curtissa, and I shared classes (I was oblivious to the whole political thing) and now I read her entry in my yearbook with bemusement, "Thank you for being my friend". If I had only known. Then again maybe it would have tainted what really was just a normal friendship, at least for me. Everything is so fraught now with these Meanings.
You are completely right about not tolerating any kind of racism. But you are, if you will forgive me, for I don't mean at ALL to sound condescending, a product of the post 60s. Those of us who were raised before the 60s have, I think, a better feel for just how far we have come. How truly awful things were.
But without the continuing indignation and anger of those to whom the present still seems unacceptable, we won't go further. So yay for you, and more yays for our kids who can't even figure out why we might use the word "victim". |
