Reply #104

It was an eye opening experience for me as I grew up in a rural area of Ohio. We only had two Black students in our high school and they both were treated with respect. One was the quarterback of our football team and his sister was a cheerleader.

I distinctly remember riding through Biloxi Mississippi on a bus. I was on my way from basic training to my training in electronics at Keesler and was sitting beside another white airman from the South. We passed by a laundromat with a "White Only" sign on its door.

I commented to the airman beside me, "Does that mean you can only wash white clothes there?"

He laughed and said, "You dumb Yankee. That mean only white people can wash clothes in that laundromat!"

I became friends with several black airmen and this irritated the hell out of some of the white Southerners that I served with.

Admittedly that probably WAS one of the stupidest comments that I have ever made but in my defense I had never witnessed true racism before. It's ugly.

I feel that since that time our nation has made a lot of headway in overcoming racism but there is no doubt that it still remains.