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Well obviously it was better than it was back then. It still wasn't a paradise for the average black American though.
Yes, there was discrimination in America, and that is the stain that we can never wash out of the fabric of our country, but in the 1950's there was the beginning of the black middle class.
Paradise? no, but the black family was strong, and the financial upward mobility of the black family and black community was on the rise. Educational opportunities were expanding for blacks and change was coming that would benefit everyone in their communities.
in the 1950's there was the beginning of the black middle class.
The black middle class had origins long before the 1950's. In the 1890's, blacks were a big part of (for example) Wilmington NC's city government, until the redshirts came along and literally overthrew the city government, and ran the black middle class out of town. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmin...ection_of_1898
The values of folks back in the 1950s and early 1960s were really great:
it was all right for a husband to cheat on his wife;
it was all right for a husband to be beat his wife;
it was all right for parents to beat their kid as long as the kid didn't die;
it was all right for a businessman to force his female employees to have sex;
it was all right to be a drunk as long as you did it privately;
it was all right to drive drunk, and killing or maiming somebody while doing so got you a slap on the wrist;
it was all right for companies to dump toxic waste into rivers and streams or release them into the air;
it was all right for employers to ignore employee safety;
it was all right for farmers to indiscriminately use pesticides on crops;
it was all right for cities and towns to dump untreated sewage into steams and lakes;
it was all right for smokers to puff away anywhere at any time;
it was all right to discriminate not only against blacks and/or Latinos, but also against Jews and Catholics.
None of those things were "all right" You conflate moral right with legal right. Men who beat their wives were handled by other men in the community or by her family. If a man was caught cheating, that was the only grounds for divorce and the woman got everything.
Businessmen could coerce sex out of their female coworkers, that still happens today.
You can still be a drunk and even seek accommodation at work and claim it is a disability.
People still drive drunk today and get slapped on the wrist. At least back then, cars were built with steel and constructed in a way as not to fold into an accordion upon contact with another vehicle.
Children from abusive families are taken from them and put in the foster care system that can be just as abusive and the overworked bureaucracy of Child Services is not any better than some of the families those children come from. Don't kid yourself.
Discrimination is an inherent bias of every human being and will always exist, regardless of how much the government tries to legislate it out of people.
As to employee safety, etc., that had nothing to do with the overall happiness of families in the 50's in general.
Linda D has it right. Eye State Your Name is wrong.
I was beaten a lot by an abusive drunk that got a pass from the rest of the neighborhood. When I got back from 'Nam I paid him a visit with every intention to beat him as close to death as I could with a bit of primitive torture just for grins. I wanted a little payback.
Fortunately for me I saw the weak and painfully sick old man dying of emphysema. I realized that leaving him untouched was just about the worst thing I could do. So that is exactly what I did. I wished him a long and miserably painful life and walked away.
I was a pretty disturbed individual at that point in my life. I probably suffering from PTSD and speed withdrawal left over from the War. Looking back on it I am glad I did not touch him because I would have probably been jailed for my efforts.
In no way, shape or form do I want to return to those days and that society.
Moon, appreciate the balanced approach. Agree on all. Some just can't get that people live in historical eras, as a result are products of the eras. As such, what and how they live, lead their lives are neither evil, without value, nor patently good. It just is.
To attack it is just immaturity and inexperience speaking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michiganmoon
In some ways the 1950s were better:
-Much Lower Murder Rate
-More Intact Families
-More National Unity
-More Wholesomeness
In some ways the 1950s weren't that great:
-Cold War Anxiety
-Racial Segregation
-Females Disempowered
Aren't the 1950s still happening in many a small town across America even today?
It sure seems that way to me.
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