A serious topic today – coming from my blog/website.
Kelsey and I went to see “The Butler” last night at MOA. I had heard some good stuff about it and knew what it was going to be about, but didn’t know who was going to be staring in it, and did NOT read any reviews before seeing it.
Having seen “The Great Debaters” (2007), and “The Help” (2009), I knew this was going to be another substantial film about how African Americans were treated before my lifetime AND during my lifetime, a film that NEEDED to be made (and seen by people like myself), much like the two I mentioned just now, along with “Schindler’s List” – even if it was going to make me cringe or cry or shake my head, at how humans can treat their fellow human. Films like this are made, not just for people my age, who partially grew up during part of that ear, but also, for younger people (our sons and daughters and teenage grandkids as well) who have no clue as to how it was back then, before the civil rights movement, before things finally changed, before people of “non-color” (i.e., “whites”) started accepting and started realizing that people of “color” were fellow human beings and ARE our equals. […going off on a tangent: I was on the Univ/St. Thomas’ website yesterday, and there were the words “people of color” (indicating “people of color” comprised 10% of its students) – and I became offended with that phrase – since we ALL are “people of color”, but I don’t know what the new terminology should be]. Anyway, people need to see this movie – especially young people – in order to understand the trials and tribulations of African Americans – I don’t think young people (i.e., age 15-25), really understand how it was – yes, they may have learned something about it during sociology class in school – but this film (as well as the Great Debaters, and the Help) is a visual history. Is it hard to watch, you betcha. Lots of places, I shook my head…
While growing up, I had no clue either. I lived and grew up in a suburban white city (SCS), outside of Detroit, during the 60’s and 70’s. We did NOT have ANY African Americans in my elementary school, nor JR or SR high school. It was 100% white. I was clueless about how African Americans were being treated – since I “rarely” saw them. Sure, my grandmother lived in the inner city of Detroit (East Grand Blvd and I-94, near the Hamtramk plant), and she lived in a neighborhood with many African Americans – but, to me, they were just my grandma’s neighbors. When we went to visit, you would wave hello to them as they were sitting on their porch, just like my grandparents would. I was only 8 yrs od during the Detroit Race Riots of summer/1967. I don’t think I knew or understand what was happening then or why – not at that age. All I knew was my parents, a few yrs later, moved my grandparents to a house down the street from where we lived – since they probably thought it wasn’t safe for them to live there any longer. I didn’t think anything of it at the time – maybe I did, who knows, I was only 12.
However, a few years after that – around 1974, I became more aware of the contention between my race and African Americans – I remember my dad talking about “busing”, and at that time, I didn’t understand why there was “talk” about busing us kids (in SCS) to school in Detroit, and those kids in Detroit, would be bussed to school in SCS. That didn’t make any sense to me, but I still didn’t have a clue as to why anyone would want this or make people do it. I just knew my dad was against it – AND, was VERY against African Americans buying a home in SCS and “moving down the street from us” – and I’m not proud to share this, but my dad was dead set against that. I didn’t know then that he was a prejudiced person.
I am ashamed to admit, but I grew up using the “N” word – my mom and her parents were from Kentucky – they used it when referring to African Americas – I would like to think most of the time it wasn’t meant to be derogatory, but I’m not that naïve to know there were times when my dad (and I and my brother) would use it in a demeaning way, and sometimes, I didn’t understand why he would refer to them that way – since, if he was upset with various kinds of people, he would call anyone the various derogatory names that he thought applied. Over time, I began to understand NOT to use that word, and not to call people derogatory names – I want to say this happened due to my Christian upbringing but I think it had to do with me, going to college at WSU (inner city Detroit), and having African American as fellow students (but, being introverted, I really didn’t go out of my way to become friends with anybody while I was going to school there part time at night). However, the real reason was, about 3 yrs out of HS (age 21), I started to work in the inner city at the World Headquarters of Burroughs (later, Unisys), and this was my first real daily experience with African Americans, working together with them, in an office environment, and basically not caring that the color of their skin was different than mine – If I needed a question to be answered, and I knew that so-n-so had the answer, I asked them. If I needed help, I asked them – they were on the job before me, and obviously knew what had to be done and how to do it. I never thought of them as less than me. Which is why I was so confused as to why my dad disliked them. They were obviously as smart and as hard working as I was. [Here, I would like to apologize for the words “they” & “them”, it’s just sometimes simpler than typing African Americans].
Anyway, even if I grew up as a teenage with no knowledge of their lack of civil rights – gradually, I did learn about Rosa Parks, and how it was just 20 yrs prior to that time in my life (i.e., before the mid to late 60’s). I somehow learned how awful it was to be an African American – and how “us” people mistreated them. It wasn’t just in the South, it was in the North as well, in Michigan, and probably all over the US, NOT just in the Southern states.
I think it was BECAUSE I worked in a huge office building full of African Americans that whatever I had previously heard – it was nonsense – these people – people my age or older, only wanted what I wanted – to do a good job, and to get paid for doing a good job – they obviously were as smart as I was, since they were doing the same job as I was doing.
Anyway, I’m running out of steam here, but some of the scenes in the movie just hit home – how we treated people back then – breaking up a march using fire hoses, sitting in a diner and getting harassed by – sure, I had seen the photographs yrs ago, but seeing it on film made me realize this REALLY happened. The people of my parent’s generation treated people DIFFERENTLY based on the color of their skin – and, for NO OTHER REASON than that. I am ashamed and embarrassed to be a part of this race. And, a lot of these people went to church on Sundays and were so-called Christians.
What did these people tell their kids – oh, we had some in our diner today not sitting in “their” area, so I poured hot coffee on them, squirted ketchup on them, etc.? Were they proud of what they did? “oh, I stomped on one of them”, and then, with their words, perhaps causing their own children to become prejudiced as well – hopefully not – it seems the majority of us kids, finally decided to speak up and say: “That isn’t right, Daddy”. I am so glad that Truman, Kennedy and Johnson were great thinkers and realized what was going on was WRONG.
I cried a little bit during the movie, I also became angry – I had a lot of different emotions going on during those 2 hours last night. Again, I am writing this, to encourage YOUR children to see it, and their teenage children to see it as well. Hopefully, never again do we allow behavior like that to go on like it did for so long.
This blog post is about “previous” human behavior toward African Americans – but I also include the horrible Holocaust tragedy that occurred with Jewish people, and the evil behavior toward Gays – yes, human behavior is GETTING better, but there is still lots of intolerant people out there who we need to convince that all people are equal and deserved to be accepted and loved – the only way is to ask them: Would you treat them this way, if they were your son/daughter/grandkid??
Thank you for listening – please go see “The Butler”.
