if a non white person tried to order a meal back in 1850 would they serve him?

[BobHufford]

A local tourist attraction used to have a different use...

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the earliest major protest parades of the Civil Righs Movement took place in New York on July 28, 1917 as more than 10,000 African-Americans marched silently down 5th Avenue in a demonstration against American racism.

The parade was triggered by a bloody series of race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois in which about a hundred African-Americans were murdered after white industrialists tried to use them as strikebreakers. No white industrialists were killed, or even injured.

 

[Benny Holiday]

I find it hard to understand. Where does the unwarranted hatred end? Say if someone's paternal great grandfather was Jewish, and the great-grandson or -daughter was, say, 1/8 Jewish. So does a bigoted anti-Semite hate just 1/8 of the person or ignore the 7/8 'Anglo' blood and hate the whole person? It's stupid and it doesn't make sense.

I heard the other day of a child being referred to as 'mixed-race'. Why the label? Can't they just see another human being? The genetic differences that create so-called 'race' traits are so tiny, they might as well say, "I saw a child of mixed-height parents," or "I saw a mixed hair-colour child today." "I don't socialise with people who have hazel eyes. They're inferior to us blue-eyed people." Who would think like that?

 

[LizzieMaine]

The answer to that, I think, lies in questions of structural social power rather than of skin color or eye color or religion or culture. Dr. Seuss got to the root of it in his short story "The Sneetches" -- a whimsical simplification, certainly, but not far from the truth. Another interesting treatment of the subject can be found in George Schuyler's remarkable 1931 novel "Black No More," about a scientist who develops a process to turn black people white -- and the social chaos which ensues when bigots can no longer tell who they're supposed to hate.

Charlie Chaplin was constantly being asked by -- or "accused by" -- anti-Semites of being Jewish. He would always bow his head and say "I have not that honor," which is a response I've used myself when asked that question.

 

[Benny Holiday]

I'll have to track down a copy of "Black No More," that sounds very clever. As always, a very insightful post from you Lizzie.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Black No More" is one of the most audacious books of the Era. George Schuyler was a prominent African-American journalist who followed the example of H. L. Mencken in his general iconoclasm and refusal to comply with expected social norms -- he married a white woman in 1928 at a time when such an act was illegal in 30 of the 48 states, and at the same time he openly mocked many of the African-American leaders of the time for their failure to pursue courses of action that he, personally, endorsed. He was the regular editorial writer for the Pittsburgh Courier, either the largest or second-largest black newspaper in the country depending on the year in question, and you could never predict where, exactly, he'd come down on any given issue. He was all over the political map -- he started out on the far left, but by the end of his life he was being fired by the John Birch Society for being too extreme.

The novel itself is, all in one, a bitter, slashing satire of American racial mores, an indictment of what Schuyler saw as ineffectual leadership in the civil rights movement of the time, and an early piece of dystopic science fiction. Nobody is spared -- and the ending is a graphic, gruesome description of a lynching that could have been lifted from an actual newspaper account of the times, except with a furious plot twist. I was reminded of it, in spots, when watching the recent film "Sorry To Bother You," but "Black No More" is far more aggressive in its approach. Once you read it, you will never forget it.

 

[scotrace]

In my area is the densest population of indigenous Guatemalan people in the United States. I've written numerous articles for local publications sharing their story, why they're here, why they've chosen this specific place on the map, how they got here, what they've escaped, why they don't speak Spanish or any language native Ohioans might know, the kind of work they do here, etc. I've encouraged local natives to visit the Guatemalan tienda markets they run, to smile and be welcoming, to stop worrying about not speaking their language and just work out ways to communicate.
And while there have been plenty of local people who have truly made an effort to reach out, find ways to help, provide some shielding from a system they are helpless in navigating, etc., there has also been a stomach-turning crowd of bigots who are not shy about showing off their ignorance.
And it's very much a repeat of local history, only 100 years ago, the newcomers were Italian, and were viewed as a serious, unwelcome threat, and caused population shifts within communities as people who thought themselves "whiter" moved out of increasingly Italian neighborhoods.
Why are we so hardwired to group ourselves and find those outside our group undesirable, or even not entitled to an undisturbed life? Why have we as a species always done this? It's not just the bigoted white American south of the era, it is Tutsi and Hutu, Japanese and Korean, Turk and Greek? Or heck, Union vs. nonunion, smoker and non, Red Socks and Indians, Crips and Bloods?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think that any sentient creature has an instinctive fear of what it doesn't recognize, or what it doesn't understand, but that fear can be overcome. Where humanity goes wrong is when it allows that fear to be manipulated by those who understand that it *can* be manipulated to suit their own purposes.

As for Red Sox and Indians, we are all One in the love of Tito.

 

[MikeKardec]

I find it hard to understand. Where does the unwarranted hatred end? Say if someone's paternal great grandfather was Jewish, and the great-grandson or -daughter was, say, 1/8 Jewish. So does a bigoted anti-Semite hate just 1/8 of the person or ignore the 7/8 'Anglo' blood and hate the whole person? It's stupid and it doesn't make sense.

I heard the other day of a child being referred to as 'mixed-race'. Why the label? Can't they just see another human being? The genetic differences that create so-called 'race' traits are so tiny, they might as well say, "I saw a child of mixed-height parents," or "I saw a mixed hair-colour child today." "I don't socialise with people who have hazel eyes. They're inferior to us blue-eyed people." Who would think like that?

When I can get away with it I say: "Race? That's so 20th century." Really, we need to get the jump on things. In 100 years everyone will just be tan.

Of course, sometimes these days "mixed race" is mentioned as something to covet. It just depends where you are or who you're talking to. When I was a kid we still identified other kids as Jews and Italians and Greeks and the like. Those distinctions have just about faded away but we treated them as "race." Our comments weren't necessarily negative but they did come with assumptions about what the other person was like. Race, in it's "secondary" level of significance is often more about prejudice relating to culture. That prejudice can be positive or negative, however. In the 1920s my father boxed as a "Jew" because at a certain time and place Jews were known to be tough. It was only later he started billing himself as "Irish" for the same reason.

In Broome, WA, back in the pearling days there was a strict social hierarchy based on race. WASPs from any country were at the top. Immediately beneath them were the white Catholics. Then the Asians with the Japanese being dominant because they were motivated, forceful and organized; extroverted. The Chinese were below them, though they had all the same traits in that time and place except the extroversion. When the Broom Japanese wanted something, so the stories go, they organized and took it ... like all the top pearl diving jobs, a role from which they even pushed the whites. Further down on the ladder, several runs down, were the Filipinos. At least until the early 1900s. Then their home islands became an American colony and a somewhat self governing colony at that. Suddenly many people in Broome were accepting Filipinos at something like the same level they accepted the Japanese. More than that, there were a number of Filipino/Irish weddings. The Filipinos were accepted (of course not by all, but by enough) as "Americans" and since they were Catholics, this highly racialized community found its way to tolerating "interracial" marriages. Weird and wonderful and it's always made me aware that even in what we might call a racist society (in this case there were many levels of racism and not all of them coming from the Caucasians) things are never as simple as they seem.

I suspect that if a non-white person tried to order a meal back in 1850 a lot would hinge on how cosmopolitan a city it was, how "high class" he appeared to be and how foreign he seemed. Rich foreigners were probably not expected to play by the same rules as locals of any level of wealth. A rich foreigner might stand a chance if he gracefully carried the expectation of service with him. A man or woman who acknowledged (possibly even unconsciously) their being a part of some under class wouldn't stand a chance in many places but that also often went for Irish and Italians and other "whites."