OT: For those of you who loved the 60s

You can say the 60s were an innocent time. I tend to think of it more as ignorance and I can't see that it was better.

Elizabeth

Michelle wrote:

Given that in some ways, I didn't care what society thought, I've always thought every one was equal.

Which is great. But if you can't recognize that there's a problem, it's kind of hard to fix the problem and one of the major problems in our society is that we don't all have the same opportunities, and are thus, ultimately, not equal.

Elizabeth

But in grade school, you don't know from "ultimately". At that point in our lives, we were equal, and no one had lesser opportunities in our world. All of us had equal opportunity to be team captain, all of us had equal opportunity to be class president, all of us had equal opportunity to sing the solo at the Christmas concert.

My best friend was black. No one in town thought anything of it. I can tell you that in a neighboring town, eyebrows were raised, but in grade school, we didn't have permission to ride our bikes to the neighboring town, so we didn't know that.

We were raised to be color blind, and we were. This was just a nice girl whom I had a lot in common with, and we never thought beyond that.

Last year, when I was stitching an MLI for her birthday, someone suggested that I change the skin color to look like the recipient. I subtly brought up the subject, and the response was "I think and act as if I am a white woman; when I look in the mirror, I am always surprised to see a black face." She got a white MLI.

I can't remember the name of the book, but I read it in the sixties, and it contained a lament by a southern black mother as she looked at her newborn baby alongside a white baby and enumerated the things that could never be his merely because he was black, all the closed doors, including the Presidency. It certainly had the power to make me think, it was very poignant.

I find that devastatingly sad.

Elizabeth

It is something echoed by many of the kids adopted from distant nations.

But that's a little different than hearing it from someone who had the opportunity to be raised in her own culture, yet wasn't.

It's like the boyfriend I had when I lived in Belgium. His mother spoke Flemish growing up, his father spoke German, but they raised their kids only in French because that would give them an economic and cultural advantage. He even got mad at me when I spoke to his mom in Flemish (because I could, and he couldn't). I find that sort of thing really sad.

Elizabeth

As I said, we were raised to be color blind, and therefore we were. Most of her role models were white, and she never even thought about it that there might be things she might not be able to do because of her color.

We used to joke about being twins, because we were so much alike, and if someone was so rude as to question it, she'd look down at her hand, stare at me wide-eyed, and in mock horror "you never told me I'm black!"

She jokes about it that being essentially raised by my parents (her single parent worked two jobs and was never home), she has a thing for tall blonde German men. She's THAT imprinted on being white.

I listened to an excellent programme on BBC4 - the participants were coloured children black/yellow whatever, who had been adopted by white parents from their own countries (it was around the time Madonna flipped back into England with latest baby) and all were agreed there was a void in them which yearned for their native cultures - yes, they knew they had been saved but they wanted people to know that saving came at a price and that perhaps people should think more on the lines of seeing children get a fair crack of the whip in their own countries, not jet in, jet out with baby, and think they are helping humanity.

At no time did they come over as ingrates, they were asked and they spoke from their hearts. Since the forerunners are old enough now to tell us how it feels, we should be listening.

Elizabeth

Creative snippage.

With the lack of editing, it's gets confusing lol

Well since it is not your birthday I have to say, no snippage leads to excessively long posts and errors in accreditation. Start snipping ! Not sniping, just snipping.

In 1965-68 I had a wonderful woman work for me when we lived in Virginia. She came in daily, took care of the house and kids, while I worked at the Children's Hospital. She and her husband had never had children, and the land they owned was extremely valuable, so she had no financial NEED to work! She would work for women who helped other children in a professional field.

Ms Willie, as the kids always called her was a jewel. I do remember how outraged she was when my younger child called her black one day! He must have heard Stokeley Carmichael, Malcolm X or someone on TV. Ms Willie strongly told little Mike that her shoes were black...she wasn't. Her skin was brown, and don't ever call her black again! She had a locket she always wore with Robert Kennedy on one side, and Martin Luther King on the other.

Actually, having only come to this country in 1961, I thought the video quite accurate.

Donning asbestos panties and hiding!

Gillian