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There are injustices today as well. Always have been, always will be. Should every era in human history be defined by it's injustices? Should the experiences of people in good circumstances always be invalidated by pointing out the existence of those less fortunate? The only way to ever create a situation where there is nobody less fortunate is to have us all be equally miserable.
While I agree with your overall assessment, you're totally overlooking the question at hand...which is "do you miss the good ole days?"...to which most people answering are automatically referring to the 50's/60's.
And unless you're directing this question to straight white Christian males only, you have to understand that those times were NOT "good" to pretty much anyone else, especially if you were black living in the South. The pure terror that must have existed in these people's minds on a daily basis if they dared offend a white person in any way is hard to think about.
So yes...every period in history has it's "negatives". The Jews got the short end of the stick in almost all of them. And from about the 1600's onward, blacks did too. Therefore, when questions like this are asked, it would be best to direct it towards those who can actually give a fair answer (I.E., STRAIGHT WHITE MALES).
How would you SERIOUSLY expect an 80 year old black man or woman to answer that?
Yes, I miss the days before hyper levels of technology, (computers, tablets, smart phones, in combination with massive user consumption) took over everything.
It amazes me how any time someone mentions that life is not and/or has not been so rosy for black Americans, there's got to be a chorus of "well what about white folks, huh?" and "what about black gang crime?" and "what about all of the nice, innocent white folk, why make them feel guilty?"
It's wild, the defensiveness and fragility. Amazingly predictable. One person of color stands up and mentions a historical injustice and there's a chorus. Sheesh.
The fact that a Jewish man was lynched, doesn't mean that black Americans should stop acting like they had it so bad. Like maybe all lynching is bad? I mean, crazy notion. But to pretend that it didn't largely focus on attacking black Americans because white Americans just couldn't handle the notion of anything like equality in the post Civil War era, is pretty disingenuous. It's like a person of Jewish descent bringing up the Holocaust and someone weirdly defending the Nazis because they also killed gays and artists and some other ethnic minorities. I don't get how that makes it better? Not sure the point of trying to argue that "your kind weren't the only ones who suffered"...like...so...is that supposed to make it fine?
It's weird.
And it also reveals a stupid willingness to be led by the nose, when one accepts uncritically the idea that black Americans are more criminally inclined, perhaps by nature. If you don't know why some leaders want you to think that, please go have a careful read of the 13th Amendment. If you're willing to truly see it, it's pretty hard to un-see it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hermit12
Ask any white person who lived in a 'changing' neighborhood how great that was.
My dad lived in one on the '50s ... good times.
My wife and her family (from China) lived in a 'changing' neighborhood in the early 70s ... talk about a rough time. Don't give me that crap that blacks are the only ones who had a bad time. They dished it out pretty good themselves.
I'm not going to apologize or feel guilty for having a nice upbringing in a nice neighborhood. I had to avoid certain neighborhoods, too ...
OK so you're pretty much admitting it's mostly fear and hearsay and "avoiding certain neighborhoods" because of what you have seen on the news, heard from other people, and assume is completely true.
I've seen and heard that stuff too, so I understand.
But let me tell you a little something about the late 1990s in Cincinnati, OH. There is a neighborhood that is now gentrified, but at the time and for years after I moved away, was in magazine articles as the "most dangerous neighborhood in the nation." https://thecrimereport.org/2009/06/2...ost-dangerous/
As a young adult, first I lived in the "East End" of Cincinnati. That was where the poor whites lived, down along the river in poorly maintained, pest infested houses that had barely survived floods. I was there when I was pregnant with my first child. And as a young, very visibly pregnant woman, was walking down the sidewalk one day to get to a clinic for a prenatal appointment when what I can only call a pack of feral white boys (younger than teens, all of them) scrambled out of an alley and started chasing me throwing bricks and chunks of concrete. I was actually afraid...because it was pretty clear that if they'd hit me just right with one, and knocked me down, they would have gleefully continued until I was a dead bloody pulp on the icy sidewalk. It wasn't easy but I ran away. I ran past adults and no one did anything. I got to the clinic. I wanted to call police but was told that by the time they arrived the kids would be gone anyways, and maybe I should ride the bus instead of walking the six blocks from home to the clinic.
Later on, we moved to the very edge of the supposedly "most dangerous" neighborhood in the country, Over The Rhine. I walked through it with my baby in a cheap stroller that was given to us by a charity, to get to a little faith mission where they gave away day old bread donated by local bakeries. I had to tie the bags on the stroller and walk back up the hill in the summer of 1999 when people were dying left and right from the heat. OTR neighborhood smelled like rat urine, and had boarded up buildings and lots of dim alleys, it was the land of urban decay. Poor black people would watch me walk by. Once in a while someone would ask for change, which I shared if I had any, or a cigarette. Occasionally someone would ask if I wanted to buy some grass. (Once my husband actually did want to buy weed and took a man up on an offer phrased precisely that way, and was sold actual grass...lawn clippings in a tiny baggie that we did not discover as such until later when we got home lol!) But I never once felt like anyone wanted to KILL ME. Let alone a bunch of children.
By far the most dangerous and frightening people I've ever encountered in my entire life have ALWAYS been white males with bully mindsets.
Every time, no exception.
And I know that's very anecdotal, but I've lived in the shadow of Washington DC and I've lived in Cincinnati, Des Moines, Olympia, Colorado Springs and now Phoenix...I've not formed my opinions sitting safe in my house reading the internet or watching the news, but out walking around and interacting with REAL people. Not letting others tell me what I should believe. Maybe if there is anything I miss about the "good old days" it is that. I'd love to go back before I ever heard anybody say, "I do my own research" meaning that they avoid the real world and accept what they found online.
And I'll never forget my Great Aunt saying that OTR was so dangerous that it wasn't even safe for her to drive her car through it, yet walking through on foot many times and just being a combo of friendly and "MYOB" towards other people and feeling perfectly alright.
OK so you're pretty much admitting it's mostly fear and hearsay and "avoiding certain neighborhoods" because of what you have seen on the news, heard from other people, and assume is completely true.
Honey, my father lived it. My wife lived it. They learned the hard way. I live in Philadelphia, I know all the neighborhoods. Been through them all, witnessed the culture. This goes for neighborhoods of all races.
The neighborhood just west of me is to be feared and avoided by those who value their safety and comfort-level. If you like neighborhoods like that - have it ... personal choice and all.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not living through the news or other people's fears in an ivory tower. I'm living in reality.
No offense, but I'm betting the reason you didn't get harassed living in the 'hood is because you probably looked like you belonged there.
And, yes, we all know there are bad white people and good black people. I'll take my chances and play the percentages.
Your experiences are valid to you, mine to me.
You know what you can do with your woke lesson ...
BTW, I think it's stupid and elitist how certain white people assume all black people had it bad in the '50s and '60s.
Well, I haven't gone through all the pages, and what was good and bad also can be the 70s,80s,etc. Grew up in the 1960s and 70s, etc.(I'm 66). Miss the original Swanson TV dinners in the metal trays, Patio Mexican TV dinners, especially the mini taco ones. Watching horror movies on tv with various hosts. CBS I believe used to run late night movies that I would watch. Just being a kid and not having to constantly look over your back for weirdos. Oh, they were out there, but not as bad as today. Remember all the Viet nam war protests, which i get.We had just come out of WW2 and Korea, and then our leadership sucked our soldiers into another war, which is one of the reason for the protests,because a lot of people got tired of us getting involved fighting other peoples battles. There were a lot of people before WW2, who didn't want us to get invovled.Then you had Pearl Harbour so here we go again. Discrimination against blacks and other minorites with lynchings, etc. The Civil Rights movement was to try to rectify the horrors of the past, so people regardless of color could live in peace and not fear.
Wouldn't mind going back to the 1920s, BUT, everyone dresses like that area, cars look the same, but we have the modern medicine of today, but the technology, if any of this makes sense.
Now the whole area is filled with congestion because of lost tourists still glued to their phones taking it super slow and even causing some accidents in the process.
If they are looking at their phones while driving, then they are a hazard on the road, and are also not very bright--to boot. Why would anyone need to have their eyes "glued to their phone" when the auditory instructions are extremely clear?
Besides just the general wonderfulness of being young, full of energy and having a sense of hope for the future, I think the thing I miss most was one of the simplest.
Sitting in a circle with friends and strangers listening to great music, laughing about little things with the only complaints voiced being an occasional 'hey quit bogarting the bong'!
Personally I think no one under 18 should be allowed on the internet. The internet is wiping out the desire for children and teens to have a range of interests and even to just socialize and be together. Social Media and Gaming are both created to be highly addictive and it’s preventing the younger generations from being well rounded and experiencing life that’s not online. I notice how China bans Tik Tok (which it owns) for its own population, while promoting every depravity, confusion, division and distraction to American and Western kids. We are very stupid if we let this continue.
So short answer, yes, humans seemed to be much better at building community and entertaining each other before TV and the internet. (Of course I grew up with TV but I think that started to break down society first, as it had the same effect of isolating people in their homes and not socializing as much as they would have or taking up hobbies with others etc.). It also primed us to accept what we were being told through a screen.
Kids under 18 do need to access the internet to do school work, classes from home, etc.
Every era has its negative points, even today. I believe when most people talk about the good old days they’re fondly remembering positive aspects of that era that aren’t around today.
My "old days" were the late '60s. The craziest five years in this country's history.
We had to do duck and cover drills because the Soviets were gonna nuke us.
We had people getting assassinated left and right.
We had riots every other week.
We watched people get slaughtered in Viet Nam every night at 6 PM.
And then there were those nights when you'd dream that Charlie Manson or the Zodiac was hiding under your bed.
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