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I thank NPR for remembering this landmark case, whose Supreme Court decision was announced 41 years ago today. A commentator says everything I could ever say about it here. All I can add is that I wish the rabid sentiments remembered in the piece were foreign to me. Unfortunately, they are part of my birthright and I had to unlearn them. For starting that education, I thank my third-grade teacher, Inez Pratt.
For many people, the foundational issue in their upbringings, the one they either turn to for reassurance for the rest of thier lives or rebel against for just as long, is religion. For me, it's race. Injustice in all its manifestations is my soapbox issue. But today I'm letting someone else do the talking.
4 comments:
Ralph,
I didn't realize my father was a racist until I was in the eighth grade. He never made comments until then when I got actively involved in the movement. By then, I had already formed my own opinions, and he just wasted his time pontificating. When I told him I was going to Africa, he forbade me. He told me they smelled.
I think I've mentioned this before, but when I told my mother I was going to Africa, my mother said, "if you get married, she can have a ring on her finger, but she'd better not have one in her nose!" I think she was trying to be funny, but there were so many layers of wrongness, some she couldn't even have known of at the time, that I just ignored it. Probably rolled my eyes........
Good one Raff, I just posted it over on my blog with appropriate credit.
Thanks!
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