“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Clouds dot the sky this cool morning. A breeze comes and goes. The sunlight is bright. Today is another in a string of perfectly lovely days.
I didn’t do much yesterday other than potting a plant. Today I’ll plant the rest of my new flowers and sweep the deck. I do have to get a few things to make my dessert for game night, and I’ll go shortly. The morning is the best time to shop once the tourists arrive.
Last night I watched To Kill a Mockingbird. It is among my favorites and a superb movie. I used to teach the novel to ninth graders. Prior to their reading it, I gave my students a sense of the time and the place, essentials to understanding the events of the novel. Usually my kids were pulled into the book, and they found they liked reading it despite themselves. For some it was the first novel they ever finished. I remember how indignant they were with the outcome of the trial. Their senses of right and wrong were dependent on circumstances, not race or color.
My first encounter with a person of color was when I was three. My mother and I were in an elevator at a Sears, the big Sears near Fenway Park which has been closed a long time. Three of us were alone in an elevator, the other person being a woman of color. I had only seen white people all my life so I asked my mother about the woman’s color. The woman took offense and started screaming and calling us names like white crackers and white trash. My mother was embarrassed. I was scared. I didn’t understand why she was screaming. I was only three.
I don’t remember what my mother said to me afterwards, but whatever it was both comforted and reassured me, just what I needed right then.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: a breezy day, bright day, lovely day, Person of color, sense of right and wrong, sunny, To Kill a Mockingbird
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
May 31, 2015 at 11:01 am
Hi Kat,
My town is lily white and has always been that way. There’s a bit more diversity now than when I was a child but not much and almost all Asian. There was one family of color way back then. I grew up with those kids so I didn’t have that experience of seeing my first person of color. I can see both sides of that elevator incident. Kids want to know about things especially if it’s new and different but people of color must get really annoyed at having to hear that question all the time.
Today is dank, dreary, drippy and sticky. Supposedly it will cool off later on but still be dreary, drippy and dank. I have knitting group this afternoon which will be fun.
Enjoy the day.
May 31, 2015 at 11:08 am
Hi Caryn,
My town was also lily white as was the cape when I first moved here in the 60’s. The cape is far more diversified and Brazilians are one of the reasons. There is an enormous Brazilian community, including my neighbors.
I think that woman should have realized I was only a little kid and seen my comment as curiosity, not intolerance. I was asking my mother, not the woman. It was around 1950 and so many places were still white.
It is getting humid here but the breeze is keeping the day from being sticky. We are not expecting rain so I see no need for humidity.
Have fun knitting!
May 31, 2015 at 12:05 pm
When I was six, in 1953, we moved from Brooklyn NY to segregated Dallas. I knew black kids in my neighborhood in NY and couldn’t understand the rabid racism of my peers and their parents when I was in grade school. Dallas was completely segregated in those days with separate everything. The white people defended the system by using the most convoluted logic. The real goal was to continue to have a large supply of cheap labor who through fear and intimidation could be prevented from organizing into labor unions.
The only contact I had with people of color in those days was the maid who came to our house once a week to help my mother with the cleaning. She was a very nice lady and I couldn’t figure out why she would be so hated. After my mother’s death I moved back to NY into an integrated school. Unfortunately, even the Northerners were prejudiced. They just didn’t advertise. The novel, ‘The Help’ should be on every high school reading list to remind the next generation that the 1950s was not ancient history.
Even now racism is still present in this country although not as blatant as in the 1950s. My kids don’t see the difference in skin color because we brought them up that way. Race is just a pigment of your imagination.
Today the sun is shining and there is no rain in the forecast through next week.
May 31, 2015 at 12:09 pm
Bob,
I lived in pretty much an all white town. It wasn’t because of segregation. That was just the way it was. I met my first Black kids in high school then more in college. Though my dad was prejudiced, he never said anything to us about it. We’d hear snippets and could put two and two together. He told me I couldn’t go to Ghana. As if that meant anything to me. While I was there, we wrote back and forth and a postal employee copied his address and wanted to be pen pals. My father wrote him religiously.
My nieces and nephews are color blind and their kids will be too.
May 31, 2015 at 2:35 pm
Very windy over here today but at least no rain, that will come tonight and continue until tomorrow noon. The warm weather they had promised us stopped in Estonia and will most likely travel eastwards instead of coming here.
I can’t remember when I first saw a colored person, there lived lots of immigrants in my neighborhood. mostly Turks and Finns though. But I can’t remember ever being surprised about seeing a colored person so I guess some must have lived in my neighborhood too.
Have a great day!
Christer.
May 31, 2015 at 9:23 pm
Christer,
It is so chilly right now I have closed the windows. We had about 5 minutes of rain but more is expected tomorrow. It’s about time we got some rain.
My town had no Blacks. Even the Cape didn’t when I first moved here. I love that I ended up in Africa!
May 31, 2015 at 3:41 pm
Nice reflection. That’s a great line from TKAM. If you’re interested, I recently reread and reviewed the book: https://leviathanbound.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/to-kill-a-mockingbird/
Peace!
May 31, 2015 at 4:13 pm
Levi,
I agree with every word though I do know why it can be considered young adult. We teach it to them because it is so real, so filled with life, and kids feel connected to Scout and Jem. They lose themselves in the book, and for non-readers, that’s amazing. My kids chose so many lines as their favorites because the novel is filled with unforgettable prose. Their indignation was real when Tom was found guilty even though they understood that he could never be found innocent, not there and not then.
You chose some memorable lines which were also chosen for the movie because of their insights and because they taught Jem and Scout how to live their lives rightly!
May 31, 2015 at 4:14 pm
Great points! Yes, this book draws in young readers while being honest with them. Fantastic writing.
May 31, 2015 at 4:21 pm
Levi,
I felt cheated that Harper Lee had written only the one but then to have written such a one may be enough fulfillment for a writer. I do know there is a second book, Go Set a Watchman, which is a sequel to TKAM which will be published latter this year. It is about the adult Scout. I am ambivalent.