One response to “Locker Room talk never went as far as saying White People have to die, did it?”
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How quaint, Oprah. As a white Baby Boomer born in 1954 you may think I’m one of the people you think just has to die. My dad was Italian; my mom grew up in a small coal mining town. They lived in south central Pennsylvania where they raised their family.
My mother was very intelligent and way ahead of her time. She didn’t think outside the box, there was no box. I loved my time with her, she was a lot of fun and we talked a lot. An advantage of being the first born.
I watched the Nixon/Kennedy debates with her, as well as Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. I saw both shot as we watched it live on TV. I wasn’t brought up to be racist in any way. I was taught that God made us all. My first baby doll was black, because I wanted to take good care of her in the face of things happening in our world.
At 14 I accompanied my boyfriend’s family on vacation to Little Rock, Arkansas, where they were from. His dad, mom, 2 sisters, he & I. I got in trouble on the the there with his dad. He talked about the black people there, using the n-word. I said, “Mr. Gray, they’re black people, just like us on the inside but a different color on the outside.” If he could have taken me home he would have. He became so angry, and I thought my boyfriend would squeeze the fingers off my hand. I didn’t care.
While there I saw the shacks that many black people lived in. Mr Grey told me that’s why he called them what he did. I told him it was sad that they were treated badly because their skin was a different color. I wouldn’t back down.
Mrs. Gray had to take me to the doctor for sun poisoning while there. I was shocked to see an entrance marked “white” and another “colored.” Same with 2 drinking fountains. I asked her why and she said it’s just the way it was down south. I could see down a hallway to the other waiting room and looked at a woman sitting there, wanting her to know that I’d sit with her. Same doctor. Made zero sense to me.
So I saw prejudice first hand, both in the south and at school when a popular black football player and a beautiful blonde student began dating, and racism reared its’ ugly head. I fought against it.
I read everything I could about fighting racism. I read Sammy Davis Jr.’s book “Yes, I Can” when a high school junior. I applauded the comic Dick Gregory when he walked into a restaurant in Florida and was told “We don’t serve colored people,” and he replied, “That’s okay. I don’t eat them.”
It’s arrogant of anyone tto look at God’s Creation and see the variety of birds, animals and flowers, and not realize that our different skin colirs make us a bouquet of people. I was and am a Christian and knew that God made us all, thanks to my mom.
Oprah is racist in her remarks. She doesn’t know a person’s heart and her judgment is ignorant and very sad. Reminiscent of Mr. Gray when I was 14.
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