but not forgotten.
Karen and I took our trip to the Hopkinton Fair today. Pretty darned big fair as these things go. We munched on splitpea bread bowls and beef stew, visited with the 4-H animals (I saw the largest rabbit I’ve ever seen. This thing was the size of a medium dog!), picked up some nice nick-nacks and had a pretty darned good time.
We wandered into a vendor’s stall that was displaying old cast iron toys and such, including a fairly large collection of Aunt Jemimahs and other “ethnically inspired” momentos from a bygone era. Actually, an era that I HOPE to say ‘bye, it’s GONE!’ to.
You can see some of these items below, including the sign that obviously came from an eating establishment that declares “We serve coloreds carry out only”. And if you think about it, that sign itself represents a certain degree of progress. I’ve placed the image beside a picture of the NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – Barak Obama – who just happens to be black. Or maybe Hawaiin.
Those two images side by side show progress that’s at least an order of magnitude beyond the sign.
More pictures from the Hopkinton Fair later.
I’ve long held that if you’re an American, you’re either a racist or a recovering racist. (And racism does cut both ways, of course…I’ve experienced reverse racism myself more than once.) Of course racism exists in many countries (if not in all). It saddens me that so many of us focus on these superficial genetic traits, forgetting that we are all humans. It seems like we should focus on what we share as human beings, not on differences.
Race itself is a myth, but it’s one that’s taking a long time to die.
Nice post.
I don’t know if I can agree with your first contention, although I can understand how you might get to it.
I find that a strong component of my endorsement of Obama is the belief that with his election, we will be on the threshold of a new era in America. People will have an excuse (if nothing else) to be able to move the dialogue to a whole new level.
An entire culture/race/demographic will have visible proof of their having achieved equality.
In a crude way, it’s like an underdog team winning a big game. A different level of respect is received from teams you’ve beaten. You obviously know what you’re doing. You can win games. You must be taken seriously.
If Obama is anything better than half-way decent once he’s in office (and I expect he’ll be much better than half-way decent) I think the ‘WASP’ establishment will heave a mighty sigh of relief. “Well, we finally got over that one and it wasn’t so bad. Guess we really can trust ‘those’ guys.”
I think (again with the foregoing assumption) that his presidency will make it much easier for members of other minority groups to get elected and is the first step towards really getting over the race, sex, creed, thing.