Fifty Years Later Are We Still a Racist Nation?

Al and I ate slowly and waited for the young car hop, to reappear from the building. It took awhile until another car pulled into a parking space and the girl in white came out to them and asked for their order. After she was finished, we called her to the drivers side window of our vehicle. She quickly gathered the paper wrappings from our meal, and started to turn away. My husband stopped her, “Wait.”  That’s when he handed her a folded ten dollar bill. He put it in her hand and told her, “This is for you and just for you.”  She smiled, and finally, we had eye contact.

Pulling out of that parking space, my husband turned the wheel of our ford, and without a word between us, we were heading north. We both just knew that we had to go home. The south was not the place for us. Not even for vacation. We had to return to New York. The place where people were just people, who came in all sizes, shapes, and shades of pale, and shades of brown. We needed the sounds of the brave souls, who came to the UNITED STATES from their homelands with virtually, nothing. They gambled on us and I don’t think we let them down, back then.

I am so proud of My New President, Your New President, Our New President. There is just one thing that gives me cause for concern. Recently, as a result of the Birthers, Deathers, and who knows whaters, I get the same feeling of shame, embarrassment and anger that I experienced back in 1962 at “South of the Border.” 

I feel ashamed of being white, as a result of actions of some white people.  I feel embarrassed for my President and his family, when they are subjected to ridicule. I feel angry that some white people could be so ignorant. The only word that was not spoken by Representitive Joe Wilson, from that same “Good Old Boy, State of South Carolina”,  was the word, “Boy”, when he yelled, “You Lie”, at My President, Your President, Our President.

So, I guess my question is, “What has happened to My Country, Your Country, Our Country?” Do you know?