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PatB
I can relate to that past and it was very ugly. I lived in Cleveland OH for about 3 months on and off we were billeted in an apartment building, 4 guys to an apartment and 2 men in each room. First day I walked in a white guy from down south there somewhere said, "Hey dude you're the Canuck huh? Well you lucked out, you get to sleep with the 'N' ".
That was the first time I experienced that first hand, I just said to the guy, "You're right, I lucked out, thought I'd have to room with a skinny scumbag like you." As it turned out Reggie and I became fast friends and he took me to shoot pool down in the Ghetto' with another black man.The company we worked for heard I'd done that and they were very unhappy with me, I broke their 'policy' and was fired.
They said it was because of drinking but that BS came to me after the lecture on non-fraternization. All that was in the 60's so it's not that long ago.
posted by
WileyJohn
on August 17, 2012 at 6:31 PM
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John Howard Griffin....his book Black like me which I read as a girl
changed my life forever. I had not thought before then. Being Australian I was so far away, isolated in those days, and I am thinking that my parents were prejudiced somewhat. We had a white Australia policy.....
and our Aboriginal people couldn't vote and of course we had the policy now called the Stolen generation.
Oh there was plenty of racism. I was just ignorant of it for so long.
posted by
Kabu
on August 17, 2012 at 1:10 PM
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i remember going to arkansas to visit my grandma in the 60s. my dad took us to the park. we used the water fountains marked for white and colored....we were pretty tanned and when white people were approaching my dad rushed us away from there
posted by
Annicita
on August 17, 2012 at 12:12 PM
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Well I might have checked my spelling Pat. I suppose we had a similar although probably unnoticed period. It was called class distinction, bowing and scraping to those that had ancestsors who probably had made money in the slave trade or had been favoured in the past. The 2nd world war did away with a lot of that and actually some of the named gentry really got stuck in and got their hands dirty. It was a new experience Patriotism. Even today I expect if you asked an English person what they thought of their own status
most would reply( middle class.)
posted by
C_C_T
on August 17, 2012 at 11:07 AM
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After reading CC's comment, I think I'd better go back and read all this from the beginning. I have gotten behind again.
posted by
TAPS.
on August 17, 2012 at 9:36 AM
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