• ghost_towels@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    10·
    28 days ago

    I lived in St.Louis when I was very young and my best friend was the boy that lived next to me. We told our kindergarten teacher we were going to get married when we grew up and she said we couldn’t. Because I was white and he was black. My mom was not very happy about that, I think she took me out of the school.

    Fun side story, she was working as a realtor at that time and her boss was black. They were friends and would go out for lunch sometimes. I guess someone didn’t like that as we woke up one morning to BITCH scratched really deep into our front door. It was a rental so it got left. About ten years later I was in the area so I went by my old house and lo, it was still there!!! Now, was it because of the lunches, or some other reason? I don’t know, but that’s the story I was always told. Also when I discovered that swearing did not get you hit by lightning like my friends believed.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
      2·
      28 days ago

      Not hard to see why, I guess. Altho something like All in the Family had confronted this stuff around a decade before, I don’t recall it being done in any mainstream strip, like this.

      I imagine Walt Kelly’s Pogo came about as close as it could come, but it was far more allegory in these matters.

      • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
        12·
        28 days ago

        This was calling out racism, at a time in my life when I thought we were about to overcome racism. Turns out racism is actually profitable for certain people, so they kept it going, against the best interests of EVERYONE ELSE.

    • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      28 days ago

      The “punchline” is that the dad didn’t “clear anything up”, because there’s no actual reason other than racism as to why the kid couldn’t have a black girlfriend.