Wow. just wow.
It’s kinda spookey....at 53 I could have written EXACTLY the same childhood story, right down to the red beans and rice, which I still eat, and the old word “nigra”, which I assumed was just the word “negro” with the standard two (long)syllables and a southern accent.... only your “Sally” was our “colored” nanny “Daisy Mae”, bless her heart, who I helped with “sprinkling” the laundry... I am an Alabama GRIT (girls raised in the south), couldn’t agree with you more and I would swear that you are a family member, ‘cept all mine are raging liberals ;)
I suspect this story was the norm for Southern whites back then. After being used as racist fodder this weekend and reflecting upon my childhood, I’m now having doubts about much that I had previously sympathized in the movies and books I read about the civil rights era. I know that much of it did happen and was horrible, but I now wonder if some of it wasn’t exaggerated. I played these movies for my children and discussed black history from a book a black friend had given me to ensure they understood the civil rights era and what our country had been through to get to where I mistakenly thought it was today. I’m now feel the complete fool.
The funny thing is that we would fantasize about the first black president. We envisioned him to be a Sidney Poitier character type in a movie of great intelligence and wisdom. We prayed that it would happen in our lifetime so that we could see it. After the first gulf war, we very much hoped Colin Powell would run for president and was disappointed when he said he would not. Instead, we got Obama in 2008, a man whose hand I wouldn’t deign to shake much less vote to lead the country. He stole that fantasy from us. He has set race relations back 40 years instead of uniting the country.