General Discussion

Both of my parents were born and raised there and I was born there as were my six siblings. Like you, I never heard a racist remark from my mother but did from my father. He was an equal opportunity racist similar to Archie Bunker - there were wops and spics and jews and n_____s and their pickaninnies and the homos. But also like Archie, he had a soft side to him for some things and would give anyone the shirt off his back if they needed it. We were rural people and a different kind of poor, but he would lecture us on what was real poverty if we complained about not having something. He worked downtown and would threaten to drive us down to the Hough area to show us what real poverty looked like. As a child or teenager the mixed messages could be confusing, but I became more like my mother. I just couldn't understand how anyone could not see all people as just human.