A Black Woman's Perspective of the Good Ole Days

             A Black Woman's Perspective of 

                     "...The Good Ole Days”

I listen with intense interest as the conservative right rants and raves...and longs for “...the good ole days.”  
            ...those days when truth, justice and peace reigned;

 ...those days when everyone worked and earned their pay;
... those days when people didn’t have to lock their doors;
...those days when children could play in their yards and not worry about crime or about being molested.

 All was great ”... in the good ole days,” they say!

Well, let me tell you what I remember about “... the good ole days.”  I was there!  I’m a 66 year old African American woman; I lived those days; and trust me--I never saw any “...good ole days”!  This is what actually happened:

 1.  Truth, justice and peace were only distant dreams in our imaginations.

 2.  Black folks worked like slaves in the cotton fields for .30 cents per hour,
while whites earned the white folks’ minimum wage of $1.50 per hour—and much, much, much more—in jobs totally off limits to blacks.

 3.  Good jobs for blacks entailed cleaning white folks' homes at black folks'
minimum wages-- .30 cents per hour.

 4.   We knew we’d better lock our doors, because the KKK and other hate- mongers ran rampant.  Do I need to elaborate? 

 5.   The South's “Separate, but Equal” LIE was the law of the land, and do I need to describe the blatant discrepancies in black and white "...separate, but equal" accommodations?  "Whites Only" and "Coloreds Only" signs were posted everywhere--on the entrances of virtually every public and private building--even on restrooms and drinking fountains!  It sickens me to even THINK of the filthy, deplorable, atrociously inadequate facilities that these dispicable signs directed blacks to use!

I could go on and on about “...those good ole days,” but it wouldn’t be anything pretty!  It would be a horrible indictment of the outrageously brutal value system and that those before us so wickedly manifested.

So stop deceiving this young generation about the merits of "...those good ole days!   It's just another of your great big ugly, facetious  lies!  It merely shows your deeply entrenched racist values and your demonic desire to return to a time of abject slavery, oppression and overt inequality.

Remember, Christians, God doesn't like Ugly!