Miller wrote:[Where were you living as a girl, that there were separate fountains and restrooms for blacks and whites?
Yes, and separate park service swimming pools, and sections in restaurants, etc. I lived in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh and this was in the early fifties. It was the norm, even in northern states, before segregation was wiped out in the sixties.
The African Americans, people of color, blacks, or whatever word/phrase you prefer who are under the age of 40 most likely have no experience with the degree of prejudice that was built into society then. Nowadays you have equal opportunity in the job market, and in many cases where AA is active, even an advantage, may live in any neighborhood you can afford, just as I can, and may marry anyone regardless of race... soon, perhaps, even regardless of gender. Times have changed a lot!
If these folks who get all twisted out of shape over a single word could walk a mile in their grandma's shoes, maybe they'd appreciate how LITTLE prejudice and REAL racism folks encounter now compared to the forties and fifties. Your grandparents had to endure far more than nasty words, believe me! They lived every day under laws singling them out for inferior status and limited rights! And you dare to get upset about a w-o-r-d? You young folks don't know what real racial prejudice is, and you should be thankful that you don't have to experience it as so many others before you did.
I am 62, and I think that's why my posts aren't understood here. I think Miller and others here are really too young to grasp how much American society has changed, and improved. My god, with all the war and terrorism and annihilation of hundreds of thousands of innocent blacks in Darfur, if a w-o-r-d used as an insult by the occasional ignoramus is all you have to worry about, consider yourself blessed!
