Life amongst the lowly……

As I had stated yesterday, I am ready a very interesting book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Racism is still pretty prevalent in the south. I might even be so bold as to say it is just as prevalent on the black side as the white side or even more so.

Last night, I was upstairs looking through some of my Grandmother’s things; letters, old books, and what not. I found my father’s old high school year book. It was 1964; the year he graduated. There was not a single black person in his class. Times then, in the south, were still segregated.

I am pretty familiar with the history from around here. The middle school I went to as a child used to be the old black high school. It was also home to the black swimming pool. Black people couldn’t swim with white people and vice versa nor could they go to school together.

As I have been reading this book, I have often thought to myself, have things really changed that much? One thing that has changed is that black people are no longer owned by another person. One thing I have noticed though is that poverty and crime is still rampant in the black community. They are still oppressed even though technically they have their freedom.

This morning, I walked down to the Piggly Wiggly as it opened to grab some bacon for breakfast. As usual, George and his friends were sitting out front on the benches drinking coffee and smoking. I actually wanted to see George this morning and find out his feelings on some things. George may act dumb but he is not. He is in his late fifties to early sixties and well remembers the days of segregation.

I sat down on the bench with George and we struck up a conversation. We talked a long time about segregation and racism. George filled me in on the black perspective of things around here. I learned a few important points from him.

• 1. Black people are still very suspicious of white people and tend to mistrust them.
• 2. Black people don’t feel they have been adequately compensated for slavery and years of oppression.
• 3. Equality is still a pipe dream and a class system is still very prevalent here in the south. Covert racism is the norm.
• 4. Black people want power and want to control the local schools and they have succeeded according to George. George even went so far to tell me that they are not doing a good job of schooling either.
• 5. Crime is prevalent in the black community because of anger and oppression according to George. I tend to agree somewhat but he took offense to me saying that a lot of it had to do with how they were raised and the lack of a nuclear family in most poor black communities. At least we got to discuss this matter in a friendly and non-hostile manner. We just choose to disagree.

Keep in mind that this is just one black man’s opinion on matters but I found these things deeply interesting and it make me think. I plan to read more about slavery and segregation down at the library this week. We all have a tendency to forget the past and repeat our mistakes. History is ripe with stories of doing this. I just want to be informed and able to debate and discuss this topic and issue.

Well, enough of my rambling for now. Hopefully, I will get my car back today and am impatient. I have some great road trips planned for later in this month. My little exploration of urban homelessness is my first journey. I look forward to investigating and writing about this adventure. Good day and until next time, be well.