Ted, really? No, I'm sorry but with all the remaining racism around why would someone -- unfairly -- target one area and problem that just simply doesn't exist. I am white, true, and old enough that my first experience of racism was reading the comments (usually including 'cancel my subscription') received by a prominent sports magazine when its first Spring Training cover showed the manager's wife with her arm around her husband and the black star whose return from military service won them the pennant -- both males with full uniform on. The magazine was SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, the star was Willie Mays, and the military service was the Korean War.(This thing has been ruled 'too long, so I will be chopping it up a little.)
I also remember, over twenty years later, C. Vann Woodward predicting that it could take over a hundred years before '... but would you want your sister to marry one' would lose its power, that the sexual tension was too great to dissipate. ' Fortunately, he was wrong -- and the clearest evidence IS 'Hollywood.' (I'm pedantic enough to admit that perhaps I can't speak about 'movies' -- I rarely watch any made much after 1950 as a personal preference -- one that has nothing to do with b&w except as the way the novie was shown. But I do watch a LOT of TV, broadcast and basic cable mostly, dramas rather than comedies, and also my ;guilty pleasure; -- judge shows. And not the Wicked Bitch of the East -- wouldn't use the word except that Judge Judy has made 'bitchiness' her trademark, But Judge Millian of PEOPLE'S COURT aNd Judge Jenkins of JUDGE FAITH are daily views. ' I can say that neither type of show has had any problem or question about interraciall couples for more than two decades -- whatever the 'racial' and gender mix. (There aren't many gay couples as regulars on the dramas I watch yet, but where they are, the racial mix is not a factor. There's been no shouting 'would you want your brother to marry one' -- even among the most hate-filled homophobes.) ' I suppose I could go down the list of shows I watch -- maybe get together with my wife. who watches some shows I pass on, and extend the list to all shows we've watched regularly over the past ten years -- and compare the number of black male-white female couples to the number of the reverse mix, or mixes involving Asians (East or South) or 'Hispanics" who can be of any racial combination. But that would be nitpicking, It would be easier to show the number of shows where the racial mixture was shown as ill-advised or a possible source of trouble. Because that list is, to my memory, zero. (Unless the racial mix of a baby shows that adultery had occurred.) Oh, and there was one other one I saw this week or so, where a politician was possibly being blackmailed because he was 'black passing as white' and the episode was even called "Passing." But that was a QUINCY from the late 70s. ' Racism still is an endemic problem in America, and the way blacks are disproportionately hurt by cutbacks in education, infrastructure, job and salary issues, as well as the police-caused corpses show that daily. (My only problem with "Black Lives Matter" is that, too often, all they are saying is "Black DEATHS Matter." They do, but as only one part of the overall problem.)
But racism seems to have been removed more fully from 'Hollywood' than from most areas. More importantly, the one line of racism that has joined legally-enforced segregation as (mostly) a horror from the past is the type of sexual racism you portray. I don't travel (literally, I rarely go more than a few blocks from my home except for doctors and occasional shopping trips) butt if my wife and I (white) took a trip with our closest friend and his currently girl friend (black) and we 'swapped women' at the registration desk, I think more eyebrows would be raised at the disparity in age between me and my (supposed) wife than at the racial mixture of either couple. (My wife is 18 years younger than I am, and Tony -- who is 56 -- also prefers younger women, so there could easily be a thirty year difference between me and my 'supposed wife.' ' This is already too long, but I'll just take one more paragraph to menyion what I believe was the 'tipping point' because it goes back to baseball. I think that once a rookie was called up to the Yankees 21 years ago and given #2, and his black father and white mother began coming to all his games, the sight of them, and their comfort with each other was the final piece that made people -- all over the country because the other team broadcast showed them as well -- stop being 'horrified' at the sight of a mixed race family. [sorry for the breaks, but you have a character limit]
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.
Ted, really? No, I'm sorry but with all the remaining racism around why would someone -- unfairly -- target one area and problem that just simply doesn't exist. I am white, true, and old enough that my first experience of racism was reading the comments (usually including 'cancel my subscription') received by a prominent sports magazine when its first Spring Training cover showed the manager's wife with her arm around her husband and the black star whose return from military service won them the pennant -- both males with full uniform on. The magazine was SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, the star was Willie Mays, and the military service was the Korean War.(This thing has been ruled 'too long, so I will be chopping it up a little.)
ReplyDelete.
I also remember, over twenty years later, C. Vann Woodward predicting that it could take over a hundred years before '... but would you want your sister to marry one' would lose its power, that the sexual tension was too great to dissipate.
ReplyDelete'
Fortunately, he was wrong -- and the clearest evidence IS 'Hollywood.' (I'm pedantic enough to admit that perhaps I can't speak about 'movies' -- I rarely watch any made much after 1950 as a personal preference -- one that has nothing to do with b&w except as the way the novie was shown. But I do watch a LOT of TV, broadcast and basic cable mostly, dramas rather than comedies, and also my ;guilty pleasure; -- judge shows. And not the Wicked Bitch of the East -- wouldn't use the word except that Judge Judy has made 'bitchiness' her trademark, But Judge Millian of PEOPLE'S COURT aNd Judge Jenkins of JUDGE FAITH are daily views.
'
I can say that neither type of show has had any problem or question about interraciall couples for more than two decades -- whatever the 'racial' and gender mix. (There aren't many gay couples as regulars on the dramas I watch yet, but where they are, the racial mix is not a factor. There's been no shouting 'would you want your brother to marry one' -- even among the most hate-filled homophobes.)
'
I suppose I could go down the list of shows I watch -- maybe get together with my wife. who watches some shows I pass on, and extend the list to all shows we've watched regularly over the past ten years -- and compare the number of black male-white female couples to the number of the reverse mix, or mixes involving Asians (East or South) or 'Hispanics" who can be of any racial combination. But that would be nitpicking, It would be easier to show the number of shows where the racial mixture was shown as ill-advised or a possible source of trouble. Because that list is, to my memory, zero. (Unless the racial mix of a baby shows that adultery had occurred.) Oh, and there was one other one I saw this week or so, where a politician was possibly being blackmailed because he was 'black passing as white' and the episode was even called "Passing." But that was a QUINCY from the late 70s.
'
Racism still is an endemic problem in America, and the way blacks are disproportionately hurt by cutbacks in education, infrastructure, job and salary issues, as well as the police-caused corpses show that daily. (My only problem with "Black Lives Matter" is that, too often, all they are saying is "Black DEATHS Matter." They do, but as only one part of the overall problem.)
But racism seems to have been removed more fully from 'Hollywood' than from most areas. More importantly, the one line of racism that has joined legally-enforced segregation as (mostly) a horror from the past is the type of sexual racism you portray. I don't travel (literally, I rarely go more than a few blocks from my home except for doctors and occasional shopping trips) butt if my wife and I (white) took a trip with our closest friend and his currently girl friend (black) and we 'swapped women' at the registration desk, I think more eyebrows would be raised at the disparity in age between me and my (supposed) wife than at the racial mixture of either couple. (My wife is 18 years younger than I am, and Tony -- who is 56 -- also prefers younger women, so there could easily be a thirty year difference between me and my 'supposed wife.'
ReplyDelete'
This is already too long, but I'll just take one more paragraph to menyion what I believe was the 'tipping point' because it goes back to baseball. I think that once a rookie was called up to the Yankees 21 years ago and given #2, and his black father and white mother began coming to all his games, the sight of them, and their comfort with each other was the final piece that made people -- all over the country because the other team broadcast showed them as well -- stop being 'horrified' at the sight of a mixed race family.
[sorry for the breaks, but you have a character limit]