[It's me]

What I think is sad is that this is so foreign to many children.

A friend of one of my daughters came over at around dinner time. My other daughter was setting the table. No big deal, really, just a fork and knife, plate and glass. This poor little 12 year old girl was amazed that we set the table and ate dinner together.

I was shocked that she was shocked!!

[Monterrosa-24]

One of the things Booker T. Washington tried to instill in his students at Tuskegee Institute was that such things as making supper a bit formal and ceremonial was important. He knew how middle class White families ate because he had worked for a very strict White woman in her home. He knew that typical Black small farm families and sharecroppers often handed out corn bread and so forth and the children ran around the yard eating it.

Today Booker T. would be disappointed to see that the ceremony of supper has largely been Hollywoodized/TVized/informalized in both the White and Black race.