When I was a little kid, in the ‘60s, my parents took us to the local electronics store (George’s, in Marlow Heights, MD) to buy a color TV. The salesman showed my dad a black and white TV and told him it was color but that the color programming wasn’t on yet. My dad saw other TVs on the same channel in color. He was so angry he wanted to punch the guy, but he didn’t. We left the store and never went back. We bought a color TV from Sears or something instead. I never heard that there was a problem at that store till 30 years later. I guess my parents didn’t want me to think that there were stupid/racist people in the world at that young an age. I guess I’m glad they didn’t tell me about it at the time because I would have been frightened.
Exactly.
1960s - Real racism.
2010s - Racism of that type now rare to non-existent.
What exists now are either incidents that are infinitely more subtle or alternatively just exist in the minds of those that lived through or have been told about the real incidents.
I am not so sure I ‘believe’ the renditions of Gates and Jackson, while admittedly it more than likely happened, with them sort of embeleshing it.
Now, with rabidralph, I am not sure it is racist other than the clerk thought your family was inherently stupid (for one reason or another) and figured you wouldn’t notice the difference in the TV you were looking at and the others, which in an essence just points out the stupidity of the clerk, as I always had the impression that money was ‘green’ and the boss/owner didn’t really care who put it in the till as long as it was ‘his’......
A friend that I worked for is a Ret COL USA that went to West Point in the early to mid 50’s followed up by Fort Benning.
He and his classmates used to have ‘fun’ by going to the clubs outside the gate (GA) and be refused service because my friend was Black.
More often than not, the ‘Band of Brothers- 1 Black, other 5 or 6 white’ would ‘teach’ the owner what Brothers were about.
Naturally this wasn’t an everynight thing but my friend did note that he didn’t recall being invited to accompany any of his classmates on Leave or other family get togethers - not that he would have gone, he did ‘understand’ the situation but his wife ‘never forgot’.
A lot of that ‘changed’ when he attained the rank of LTCOL, but then again, the times had also changed.
Sadly, because of the hard work of BO and his minions, including Holder, I see a late 50’s early 60’s attitude on race beginning anew and hopefully it doesn’t get any ‘worse’.
...I guess my parents didn’t want me to think that there were stupid/racist people in the world at that young an age.
I'm confused.
Was there some discrimination between the black and white televisions vs the color televisions?
Were the televisions kept segregated in different areas of the store?
Are you suggesting that the salesman tried to sell your father a black and white television but represented it as a color television?
The first two might be a very odd example of discrimination (of course you usually group items together in "like" categories) but the third might be simply mean the salesman was a con artist.
The salesman could try to rip you off due to race, but I can't determine that without knowing what your race is. Then again, if you are white, he's just a con artist. If you are black, it most certainly racism. That's what Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton told me so it must be true.
Did you where sneakers that day? Perhaps he was a shoe-ist.