|
When I was a kid living in Texas, mostly in all-white neighborhoods, everyone I knew believed that whites were superior to blacks. Most of them didn't hate blacks or wish them ill. It was just the norm. There were a few kids, very few, who, when we were alone, would discuss whether it was wrong but even most of them thought it was just the way of the world.
The only reason those discussions even came up was because my family was Jewish and taught us that everyone was the same. Even that had it's limits. They were shocked when, as a teen, I asked a Mexican girl for a date. I suspect they would have forbidden it but they were saved from that by her parents, who did forbid her from going out with me.
We were also the only Jewish family in any of the neighborhoods I lived in and it never seemed to matter to any one that we were Jewish. If we'd been black my guess is that most people wouldn't have cared, unless they were worried about property values. But some would have cared and would have acted badly and the rest probably wouldn't have interfered. This was in the 1940's and 1950s.
These weren't bad people. They didn't hate anyone. They were people who thought the way their parents thought, as were their parents. Hating them is rather pointless.
Barry
|