I grew up in the South- Georgia. The majority of people I knew did not want racial equality. End of story. In fact, I can't recall having met any white human being that wanted racial equality until I was going on 18 years old. I was born in the mid-60s. I went to school in some of the first integrated schools (for a time reference).
You can say most Americans wanted racial equality but this was not the state of affairs in the South. Racism was not just the status quo it was institutionalized and that's the bottom line. Every white person I knew referred to blacks as 'niggers' at some point or another. That was the status quo. Not knowing any better back then I can remember calling a grown man 'nigger' to his face in a Hardees restaurant when I was about 8 years old and he said nothing about it- his face took on an expression I will never forget though. It was a look that said he would put up with that today, as he had his whole life, but that day was going to change soon. And it did eventually.
By the time I was grown, you rarely heard a white person say 'nigger' if a black person was nearby. Many whites would talk friendly to a black person to his face and then call him a nigger to his back. My father did that. He hated blacks, plain and simple but that type of cowardice disturbed me greatly and I eventually ended my relationship with him because of it. Haven't spoken to him in over 16 years and it only disturbs me a little. Got no use for racists and got even less use for a man who should have taught me right from wrong but instead used a position of ultimate trust to fill my mind and heart with hateful ideas.
Perhaps in other parts of America the majority of Americans wanted racial equality. But in the South, racism was the reality that I lived in and it was against that reality the Civil Rights Movement was directed and rightly so.
I don't know why people like to remember it differently nowadays even though the footage of events from back then is out there for any and all to view. And not just from the 60s. Cumming/Forsyth County, Georgia versus Hosea Williams and crew, remember that? That happened. That was the 1980s. Those whites did not exist in a cultural vaccuum.
I find that people have a remarkable ability for self delusion. As a rational person, it really drives me crazy too. A lot of people will be 100% convinced that they did not do something even if you have the video showing that they did. I know a bush hater who says she does not hate bush but says "I'm against war, I knew this war was stupid and so on" but I remember for a fact, that in 1991, she was mad at GH Bush for not invading Iraq.
...when I was about 8 years old and he said nothing about it- his face took on an expression I will never forget though. It was a look that said he would put up with that today, as he had his whole life, but that day was going to change soon. And it did eventually.
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When I read your tale I knew that your parents had not taught you not to use that word, because they used the word.
Luckily South Georgia was not the whole US, and over time even Georgians have decided to live in the modern world instead of the racially separate world. In the Sixties, one of my classmates at school in Maryland was from Georgia. We had to hide from her father that fact that we had black classmates, or he would have pulled her out of the school.
One of the sad ironies of the racist past in the South, is that blacks and whites did work in very close quarters, yet the distinction of the pecking order was kept by which job or task each person did. When that ended officially and blacks and whites were doing the same task, even if they were not working elbow to elbow, many whites objected. Their objection was to the loss of the status symbol that each task represented, not to the proximity with which they worked with blacks. That kind of racism is really hard to get over, but 40 years have now passed, and so have many of the workers of that generation.
It is still true to an extent, but it is not as bad as it used to be.
Of course you realize that.
When I first traveled to the west coast some 20 years ago, I met my cousin from LA. He was a Celtics fan because they were a team that was able to "put five white guys on the floor and win an NBA championship."
OK, that was rather bigoted, and my jaw just about fell on the floor when he said it. I did not expect that at all. We know it is out there, but in truth it is not "institutionalized" now as it was, but that is so pretty much to a fault in some circumstances.
Your dad sounds a bit like my dad, but recall also that they were products of their time.
Things are better, but still not perfect. Better is good, and better again is the goal.
Thats real truth telling,Prodigal.
I will co-sign much of your experience and I grew up in "liberal"California,in a town south of San Francisco.Very few of my parent's generation believed in anything approaching racial equality and we all were from nice middle class families consisting of college educated professionals.Blacks were often refered to as niggers and coons and humor was often anti-black and anti-Jewish.
Politics were irrelevant.Both conservatives and liberals manifested these traits.Even dark skinned Italian kids at my high school were called"niggers"behind their backs.
I hate to say this but it took"radical"efforts by Dr. King and yes,Malcolm X,for many whites to take black people in this country seriously.Its sad to see King and Malcolm replced with hucksters like Jackson and Sharpton but no way in the world should we romanticize the"good old days"when"the colored knew their place",as one of my uncles used to say.