Interesting point. I am inclined to agree with X, that what happened was a travesty.
However, having grown up in the South (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Biloxi, Mississippi), I know how ugly and pervasive racism is. I grew up in a society in which black people rode at the back of the bus, could not eat at the same restaurant as white people, nor attend the same schools, nor stay at the same hotels, nor go to the same hospitals, so on and on. I remember separate water fountains for white and black, even when my mother attended LSU. The water fountains in the library are still there, but the signs "White" and "Colored" have been removed.
I remember when I was in school, at the end of the school year the teachers would inspect our books, and the ones that were too torn up for us to use would be sent to the black children's schools.
I remember how brave the young people were who came down from the North and helped black people register to vote. I know some of them were killed. I know that all of them were threatened and vilified.
I remember when white people who killed black people could not be convicted in a court in the South. White people not only got away with murder, they got away with rape, assault and outright fraud.
I remember being followed home by football players, taunted and spit on for being friends with black children at my high school. It was the first time I had actually sat next to a black person, other than our maid. My mother was a legal secretary, and the maid took care of us four children. She had children of her own, but she watched us. My mother gave her all our castoffs, and leftovers, but of course she was paid, too, not minimum wage, but cash. Of course, that meant she could not get social security later. We had a separate set of dishes for her to eat off of, and she washed them separately.
We also had a separate glass for the yard man to drink out of.
My mother thought she was kind, and liberal. There were words that we never used in our home.
This was not so very long ago. 30 years. I remember it all. I don't think that anyone who lived through it could forget it, and it will always poison the relationship between black and white, in my opinion, it will always cause mistrust. And rightly so. |
