January 6, 2006


  • If you liked “Planet of the Apes” surely you’ll like “Shaft”!


    If you haven’t caught this news story yet, Wal-Mart apologized publicly yesterday because the cross-selling system on their web site was directing buyers of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Planet of the Apes” DVDs to consider DVDs with African American themes.


    Ouch…that is going to leave a public relations mark.


    I keep thinking that, as a society, we are making progress on the racism front, but sometimes I’m not so sure.


    I was part of a conversation the other day about the fact that a Lowe’s Home Improvement story is going to be built in the tiny suburb of Tulsa in which I live.  I asked where it was going to be built and the reply was “I think they are buying up houses in colored town so they can build it there.” I hadn’t heard the phrase “colored town” in many years, but I brushed the comment off because the person who said it is part of a generation that would have grown up using that phrase here in Oklahoma. Then just yesterday I pulled into a convenience store near my house. A guy in his 20’s walked out of the store asked if I’d found a good mechanic to work on my car. I told him I hadn’t. He said he knew of a good mechanic in north Tulsa, if I didn’t mind taking my car into colored town to get it worked on.


    Wow, “Colored Town”…twice in the same week.


    Two steps forward, one step back; or is it one step forward, two steps back?


    I just don’t know anymore.

Comments (16)

  • i think it is more like running in place.

  • Great site! thanks for sharing.. I enjoyed reading your point of view.. I’ll be back!

  • Had you not been talking about racism my first thought would have been: “How nice, a whole section of town where all the house are brightly colored and cheerful looking” Im a psychadelic painting at heart.

  • I think it’s just more covert in society at large, with regional pockets where it’s still more accepted.  I’m still amazed to hear folks use such terminology around people they don’t know well, though.  The hard part is calling them on it.

  • Walking in circles

    xoxoxo

  • I wrote a few days ago about what Sinclair lewis might think of our society now ( he wrote a cool book about race: Kingsblood Royal..a long time ago….he would probably think we were progressing at a slow creep

  • My grandparents still say that!  One would think we could get past all this.  Maybe one day.

  • When ever I go home to Kentucky to visit, I run

    into that a lot..but here on the washington coast we love

    all of the different colors of the world.

    I had my DNA tested and wow..if only those people knew that we

    all came from Africa and we all were dark to protect us from the sun….

    Mary

  • Just wait ’til King Kong goes to DVD.

  • that’s crazy! I live in an urban area, and people just don’t say “colored” anymore. Weird.

  • Hmmm   I think I may have you beat on this one….While we were on Christmas vacation we sitting at an AMTRAK station in a medium size southern town (I wont say which one as to not offend anyone from this town)  and while we were in the waiting area my husband said to me….  “ya notice something about this area?  The only thing they’ve done is remove the sign”  I said  “whatdya mean”?  and he told me there was another waiting room, look around only white people are in this one.  I got up and walked to the other side.  Sure enough…all whites on one side and all blacks on another.  There were several instances throughout the trip that I did notice whites receiving preferential treatment.  Then, the ironic part of the whole trip was at the end of our tour we ended back at Washington DC and I walked over to the Lincoln Memorial and stood on the spot where Martin Luther King gave his  “I have a Dream” speech.  What an awaking I had. 

  • Lovey, racism is still alive.  There’s a busy cafe in a small town in NC where one of the people behind the counter frequently uses the N word out loud.  I called him on it and he said that’s how it learned it and that’s how it would stay…and he’s only 21 years old.

  • The good thing, fratmom, is that that 21 year old will stay behind the counter of that cafe until he’s 61 unless he changes his ways. The corporate world certainly has its racism, but it’s at least implicit now, and dying – a slow and painful death.

  • I keep thinking that things like this shouldn’t surprise me anymore, but on the other hand, I think it’s a good thing that they do.  It means I expect more from our society, right ?

    and ryc:  bwahahaha !!  You’ve a truly twisted mind, and that is sooooo cool !!

  • Racial bias dies a little more with each generation. Colored town may just be what people call the neighborhood now because that’s wat it was called when they were growing up. Those people are never going to start calling it Racially-diverse town or The Neighborhood Formerly Known as Colored-town. 

  • There’s no doubt that racism is alive and well in today’s society. I’m also not sure that it will ever completely go away. However, we’ve made a lot of progress as a nation, and I’m sure that things will continue to improve.

    Or maybe it’s just me.

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *