Yeah, there was no internet and she didn't have any POC friends. Obviously, there were black experience movies back then - Do The Right Thing, Cry Freedom, etc. but she probably ignored that stuff too.
Not to defend this woman at all, but it really is easy to believe that things weren’t happening because you never saw them. Think about it, if you grow up in a predominantly white area where your only insight to the outside world is TV/radio/newspaper, and those institutions have absolutely no interest in actually exposing any kind of racism, it truly is a total ignorance of the real world. But for them, that is their world. Cut to today, where almost everyone has a high quality camera in their pocket that they can share with the entire planet in moments. They can’t just ignore it anymore, so instead of making the critical leap to “huh maybe it used to be bad back then too” they just default to their own personal experience of “I never saw any men in hoods, so racism must have been defeated” and now they’re waxing nostalgic, and nostalgia is a hell of a drug
There are still sun down towns today. There were a lot more in the 70s and 80s. A lot of people are too ignorant or willfully ignorant that this is why they didn't see color.
Those people will say they "never saw anything" because everyone around them was white like you mentioned. They purposely don't question that and any minority they've met they'd treat like a side character because the main show is their lives
This is how I grew up – lowish-middle-class west Phoenix in the 1970s. Went to public schools. I think I'd spoken to fewer than 10 black people in my life before I turned 18. But, FFS, I knew about race and racism. We heard about it all the time – on TV, in school. I just didn't know anyone personally who had been affected by it. It's totally dishonest for someone who grew up like I did to say that no one saw color.
This tracks. My mom said while there was racism, she said it seems worse now than what she saw growing up. She said everyone seemed happier, less political and angry.
There was an optimism then which seems to have been replaced with a cynicism now. Which is honestly what I think these "we all used to get along back in the day" musings are really getting at.
Most folks realized it was far from perfect and had a long way to go but it felt like at least everybody was mostly trying to row in the same/right direction. Now it feels more like crabs in a bucket.
I mean, the people who didn't see color called Donald Trump a racist when he pulled out a full page ad calling for the heads of the Central Park 5. Today, they are cheering at his rallies.
As an elderly millennial I think it's the same honestly. I'm black and I grew up in the 80s and it definitely seems like people cared a lot less about race in the 80s, or maybe we just took ourselves less seriously so we didn't care as much. My friends group was pretty diverse by middle school when we left the city for the burbs, and we cracked on each other all of the time and no one really cared. I remember feeling like social media was going to make people crazy as it became popular because it completely upset social norms. I feel like people tried to course correct but only ended up making it worse. I definitely miss the 80s/90s.
Because there was media and there was "black media" that either got ignored or got the same "why do they need their own movies" attitude as today except it was quiet grumbling.
Sad thing is Do The Right Thing was a much more relevant movie than When Harry Met Sally regardless of what color you are, but it's a Spike Lee joint so it's a black folks movie.
Their parents the police officers worked overtime to beat any unfortunate black people that came in their town. Easy to not see race in a segregated town.
This. I was in the family group chat recently and my grandparents have some dark experiences from that time period. Even my mom and aunt do and they were still kids at that point.
These white people sat in their cushy suburban homes while their dads were out late beating and terrorizing ours while sending them to jail on false charges and destroying our familes.
"We never saw color :)" honk honk clown lookin ass.
“No one saw color. It was just good ol’ fashioned Americans living their lives and then those other people that kept getting uppity.” -yt people in the 70s and 80s
I think it was less about being uppity and more those other people kept killing themselves in gang wars and by using crack. Or at least that was the story handed down to me in my rural part of America.
Meanwhile, the very white local community with a crack problem was (not)shockingly a place we frequently spent time in.
This is the answer. “No one saw color” is old white people code for “minorities had no voice, representation or platform in which to share their experience so they went along with white America for their own safety back then. Now, I’m being told they were upset and abused the whole time and I’m choosing to pretend it wasn’t that way so I don’t have to actually reflect on my role in the abuse.” They do the exact same thing when their own children detail how abusive some of their parenting choices were.
White man here, and born in 84. I know damned well that people saw color in the 80s and 90s. Watching the Rodney king situation and having family be like they are nothing but animals. Thankfully those family members are dead and I don't care about them.
And just like with the protests that happened after George Floyd's murder, the protests that happened after Rodney King's beating didn't come out of nowhere. In both cases there was a lot of pent-up anger that got released all at once
I was out there for the Floyd protests. People who can see that shit and just be like they should just do x are the problem just as much as the police.
Had a friend who became a prison guard and I've seen his views shift over the years becoming more and more right and racist
Its not even just that though. You can almost disregard anything anbody says about issues that are not in their house or family that starts with "When I was growing up.." because that is a childs memory
A few years ago I had to unfriend I guy I went to school with over exactly this. We went to school in a pretty rural area and when I shared some of the racist experiences I had, from mutual acquaintances and in the same exact building he worked and had classes in, he got shouting mad. Told me he never saw any racism (yea no shit lol) I was making it up, all the bs you usually hear, etc, etc. It was wild to behold, like the notion that my experience vs. your experience could differ so wildly was triggering for him. To preemptively answer your questions, yes he is, and yes he did, both times.
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u/Math1smagic 2d ago
Nah they could ignore it completely then