Yesterday’s column ended with me saying we had nostalgia about earlier days, signifying the column itself was nostalgia, and nostalgia is always sentimental and golden.
Even as I wrote the column, I knew I was turning a blind eye to some of the bad things about “my” America, the America of the 1950s, mostly.
Starting with segregation, and not just in the South.
Loyal (liberal) subscriber Naomi Brownstein was kind 😳 enough to summarize some other facets of earlier American life:
“When homosexuality was a crime, punishable by jail time.
“When upstanding, professional Black people could not buy a home in their desired neighborhood simply because they were Black. Legally.
“Jews too were denied access to homes and jobs of their choosing, like the famed Main Line with ‘restrictive’ real estate agreements. Legal.
“Qualified women were denied jobs because they were women. Legal.
“Ditto, people with disabilities, many who could not even ride public trans because there were no reasonable accommodations.
“A Senator named Joseph McCarthy terrorized people because of their political beliefs and devastated lives. Legally.
“True, we didn’t have metal detectors in schools. That was before the Heller decision and the NRA’s relentless pursuit of flooding our streets with guns.
“Before the Right Wing outrage machine and fearmongering turned our political opponents into enemies and needy people, especially those of color into free-loaders.”
Well, Naomi, I see in the last paragraph you couldn’t resist going political and making exaggerated claims, but I won’t argue them here. I applaud you for remaining here and standing your ground, while many other Lefties have fled.
I will add, from another liberal friend (this one a lurker) that in the early days of credit cards, women couldn’t get them without a man signing off on them. Taliban, anyone?
You mentioned exclusions against Blacks and Jews, but let’s not forget Hispanics and Asians.
In addition to discrimination against minorities, we had discrimination against majorities, women, that continue in earnings today.
So, we covered race, religion, nationality, gender — anything else?
I am glad all that is on the table because it gives me the opportunity to declare, this was America’s past.
No intelligent person will deny it.
No rational person will say nothing has changed.
But yet the woke act as if this were 1922, or 1822.
So when I look at “my” old America, and America today — with Black billionaires and mayors of major cities, with openly gay people elected to public office, with trans people practically bragging about their orientation, with female governors and CEOs, with Hispanics and Asians prominent in American life and culture — you may begin to understand why I pay so little attention to what are called “microaggressions.”
Ooo, someone looked at you the wrong way?
When I was a teenager they were lynching people!
Someone used the wrong pronoun?
When I was a teenager, gays were routinely beaten to death.
When I was a teenager interracial marriage was banned in some states.
They now account for more than 10% of all marriages.
There has been a massive social, political, and economic revolution — mostly peaceful — in America since I was a kid.
I welcome it. My generation led it.
But the social change has also brought a sort of neo-fascism with talk police and thought police. Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board. Are you kidding me?
College campus, once the fertile soil for creative and oddball beliefs, the birth of the Free Speech movement, now elevates people’s feelings over others’ right of free expression, and students “of color” demand separate dormitories, lunchrooms, and graduation ceremonies.
Is this what my generation expected when it marched for equal rights? Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court rule that separate could never be equal?
I am always willing to admit the bad things about America, the things on our to-do list.
I challenge critics to list the good things about America.
As an immigration lawyer, I have the unique perspective of viewing this country through objective eyes (or rather, third party eyes.) Regardless of the legality or advisability, people are wading rivers and crossing deserts to get here. But they always have. And that’s why I think the central core of this country is the same, flawed greatness. I will say that the woke and the victimized (in their own minds) are less representative of what those immigrants are marching towards than we’re led to believe by the media. They’re blips, anomalies in history, evolutionary mistakes. Americans are survivors. I’m proud to be one.
People around the world have access to information, even the “poor” people.
That so many Black and brown and yellow and red people stream to us suggests to me they are NOT buying “systemic racism.” And the success of immigrants, which I have written about many times, proves their viewpoint was correct.
HAPPY MONDAY !!!
pallie,
Good job as always. I notice that we have a ‘guest’ appearance here before us. I read her columns through newsmax and several other sources. Ms Flowers, as always, is on point.
So boys and girls . Show of hands. How many of you know any full blooded ‘Real People’? You call my fathers’ people indigenous, native American and Indian to name a few. I won’t bother to bore any of you about racism. persecution, discrimination or a few other choice insults. Because most of the people remain on reservations, you don’t get to see the ugly scars that still exist today. People world wide, probably from the beginning of time have been aggressive towards people that are not ‘like’ them.
Since most of us came from Europe, we brought our traits with us. I would think that South America was no different than Europe. Men owned everything. Woman, children property and livestock ( & slaves ) all belonged to the man of the house. Fast forward to the USA. 246 years in the making. We have come a long way folks. We set the standards for the rest of the world to follow.
So yea, Naomi, you made some good points – as always. Then again, you glamorized the rest. I know that you came here, but I think that you came here as an adult. What was it like were you were? Why did you leave ? A previous co-worker of mine came here as a young adult. A Ukrainian Jewish female to be exact. As I heard from other Jews from Ukraine. One, you didn’t speak Ukrainian out side of the house for fear that you would be ‘turned in’. Two, forget about being a practicing Jew. Those were the highlites ( lowlites ) ! Lack of everything that we have in abundance ( prior to this recession ).
Hopefully, this ship will right itself with this coming election. We were doing well with room for improvement for a few hundred years. WE just started to loose sight of our goals. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Tony
Have been a fan of Christine all the way back to when I used to buy the Daily News.
Me, too, when I used to work at the Daily News. I agree with her maybe 50% of the time, but she is a hell of a writer.
In the mid 1950s I went by train with a friend to Norfolk, VA. (My friend wanted to buy an BB pistol, illegal in PA at that time, but legal in VA.) I was astonished to see ‘colored water fountains’ and ‘colored bathrooms’ everywhere in the vicinity of the railroad station. An old colored man asked me to go into a drugstore and buy him a Coca Cola. In my ignorance I asked him why he didn’t go into the store and buy it himself. He looked at me and said, “I’m not allowed in there.” I went to VA in ignorance of segregation and came home changed, having seen its disgrace firsthand. (In WWII, the nation’s unbelievable act of asking black men to go to war to fight for a nation that treated them like quasi slaves still astonishes me. Thank G-d Harry Truman saw the disgrace and in 1948 integrated the armed forces. Truman, one of America’s greatest presidents.) We were a sick nation, but we have worked long and hard to cure our illnesses. And every day I wake up a free man.
It takes fogies like us to understand REAL racism in America. What we have today are sone dying vestiges.
Exactly. This is what I try to impress upon today’s woke- especially those who just completed their 4-year indoctrination at fill-in-the-blank university. On more than one occasion I watched my momma crying in front of our black & white (how fitting) television singing “We shall overcome.” We still have plenty of work in front of us but what we’re seeing today is much different than what we saw then. Another great article. Thank you!
There’s too many insightful
comments going on here today. I may have to go somewhere else🤔😁
Thanks for respectfully acknowledging my thoughts, Stu. I totally agree, that our Country has made ENORMOUS progress, and I feel proud and thankful. I too scoff at some of the petty grievances of the “woke”. Yet, I fear our Country can too easily slide backwards. According to organizations that track hate crimes, they are “up”. Hatred of “the other” persists, and unfortunately is magnified by people with huge platforms, like Tucker Carlson, and the Internet. I personally know prosperous White Americans who truly believe that immigrants (brown, black, yellow), are ruining our Country. And prejudice still results in unspeakable tragedy, like the recent mass murder in Buffalo, given easy access to guns. I don’t think we can be too complacent about our gains, nor dismissive of those that insist we should do better.
By coincidence, I will address some of these concerns tomorrow.