If you are a middle-aged or older white person and don't think there is racial and ethnic prejudice then you have either lived in a very sheltered environment or are not paying attention.
- When I went to school in the '50s and '60s in the South, there were no Blacks in any white schools until the mid to late 60's when the federal government and courts mandated it.
- There were no integrated neighborhoods or apartment complexes.
- There were "Colored" water fountains, restrooms, waiting rooms, schools, neighborhoods, hotels, restaurants, hospitals and many other segregated facilities.
- If there was only one fountain or restroom it was labeled "whites only".
- Blacks sat at the back of the bus and in the balcony at the movie theaters if allowed in at all.
- These were not just policies or individual decisions, they were the law.
Some of those barriers were smashed by the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King and other activists plus the efforts of Lyndon Johnson and other politicians.
The laws changed, but the attitudes of many did not. I worked at a major bank in Atlanta in the late '60s and through the '70s. At one juncture in around 1970, I was the supervisor of a department that had a few unskilled, entry-level positions. My bosses and the personnel department approached me when there were a couple of openings. They wanted me to hire some African-Americans (they were still Coloreds or Negroes at the time). They made it clear that if I had any objections, I could refuse with no repercussions. Still, they wanted to show some effort in complying with the new racial paradigm that was in the air. It was OK with me, but they made sure to tell me that the new Black employees would be on probation and I could fire them for the slightest reason. I got the impression that they wanted me to fire them to prove they were unfit for work in an upstanding, old and venerable white Atlanta institution. I hired two young Black women. They did an OK job. Not outstanding, but not terrible either. One of them quit after a couple of months. She told me that she was upset by all the negative comments she got from co-workers and others at the bank. These young women had to deliver computer reports to many departments throughout the bank. If they were late or everything wasn't perfect, it was their fault and the whites in those departments would yell at them or make snide, often racist, remarks. Actually, it was hardly ever their fault. Those two young women were almost the only Black people working in IT (called Data Processing at the time) except for a Black woman or two in the Keypunch department on the night shifts.
After Atlanta, I was transferred to Valdosta in far south Georgia. That was a culture shock. Blacks still had to go to the back door of the restaurants to get some takeout food. There were no Blacks working in any of the south Georgia banks I worked with unless you count the janitorial crew. It wasn't just the lack of Black employees, but it was also the conversations. The N-word was in full bloom as were the slightly less offensive "Colored" or "Negro". The term "Negro" was usually pronounced as "Nigra" or "Negra". Not exactly the N-word, but pretty close. The whites resented the courts' rulings that the schools had to be integrated. Integration was not smooth. The racist white teachers did not want Black students or Black teachers in their schools. The Black students had very little chance to succeed, further enforcing the premise that they were inferior. The only thing the Valdosta schools liked about integration was that the sports teams got significantly better.
I moved back to Atlanta and now there were many Black employees, but hardly any in the IT departments. They were still in the lower positions and often part-time employees working the night shifts. Atlanta had progressed. By then the city had previously elected a Jewish mayor and a Black mayor was in office. There were still many signs of racial discord but less so.
I then moved to my old hometown of Jacksonville. Again it was a culture shock. There were few if any Blacks at my new employer. Certainly none in IT. The whole place was a "good ole boy" club and all the boys were rednecks at heart. There were racist overtones too. Since I wasn't a redneck or a racist, I was not very comfortable. It took a couple of years, but the first good job offer I got, I bolted.
My next job took me initially to the Chicago area. Although I had visited the north many times over the years, mostly the metropolitan New York area, and had traveled on business all over the country, I had never spent more than a few days or maybe a week there since my youth. The great open-minded north, where all the races and ethnicities lived in harmony. Not at all like the bigotted and racial south. Well, not so fast, maybe not. I again found a rather white company with some of the most upfront racists I had encountered in a decade or more. In the south, we had been under federal judicial rulings that forced us to integrate and change our ways. There were no such imposed changes in the north. Maybe because the northern cities were more cosmopolitan, the establishment had more minorities to discriminate against. The South had been so focused on the Blacks, that some other groups slipped under the radar.
Many ethnic groups that have already been assimilated into the US mainstream will say that they too were initially discriminated against but overcame it. That is true, the Germans, Polish, Irish, Scots, Italians, Jews, Catholics, and others were treated poorly during parts of our history. The big difference is that they were not easily identifiable by their skin color. They were not predominantly brought to this country as slaves. There were no laws limiting their existence as a human being or participant in society, only traditions. A Catholic Irish lad could lose his accent, upgrade his wardrobe and sneak into accepted society. A Jew could change his name and pretend to be a gentile. Regardless of his clothes and manner of speaking, a Black man could not hide his race. In America, we like our minorities to be easily identifiable. Blacks are obvious but so are many Asians. During WWII we interned over 100,000 Japanese in this country the majority of who were citizens, native-born and maybe multi-generational Americans. We did not intern very many people of German or Italian ancestry and almost none who were citizens. Why not? Could it be racism?
Why am I writing this now? It's because I see a reversal of our racial and ethnic progress of the last 50 years. Many Republicans and all alt-right folks are in favor of returning to the pre-1960 rules. Local, state and federal voting districts are shamelessly gerrymandered to ensure that incumbents and right-leaning politicians are elected and re-elected. The districts are drawn so a minimal number of minority representatives have a chance. Voting laws are written so that minorities have fewer places and days to vote and that they require more identification. Trump's recent election has emboldened many to publicly endorse discrimination against Muslims, Mexicans, LGBTs, Blacks, the poor, immigrants, and others. I feel that we have taken two (at least) giant steps backward in the fight for equality. That comes at a time I felt we were making real progress.
Now we have the President of the United States telling four women of color to go back to where they came from. "Go back to your country" is a tried and true racist slogan. Did I mention that these four women are duly elected Congresswomen? Three of the four were born in this country. The other legally came at a young age and became a naturalized citizen at age 18. That same president calls out a senior Black Congressman and denigrates his district as uninhabitable. There is a pattern here.
I have had a front-row seat to the prejudices of our country. I found it uncomfortable to be on the upper end of that situation, the front of the bus so to speak. I thank my Mother for that attitude.
We have now seen the full impact on equal rights and attitudes since January 20, 2017, when Trump took the office with a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress. Although the Democrats took back the House in 2018, the Senate remains in Republican control and the Courts are being moved far to the right.
Since Trump's inauguration, we have taken another few steps backward in our fight for racial, gender, sexual orientation, religious equality. His is an administration of division, insults, lies, and discriminatory policy. I hope I'm around long enough to see a few forward steps in the equality quest.
wjh
