Recently I was waiting at a red light, it was a nice spring day and my car window was open. I was listening to oldies on the radio and dancing in my seat which is a habit of mine. Suddenly a car pulled up on the lane to my left blasting Rap music. I glanced over and noticed that there were four young black men in the car and they to had their windows down. I could no longer hear my radio over the blare of theirs so I automatically I started bobbing my head and tapping the stirring wheel to the beat of the Rap. Unaware of what I was doing I glanced over at the car again. All four young men were looking at me laughing and smiling. Just then the light changed and as their car pulled away I heard them say “you go grandma” and I knew they enjoyed the moment as much as I had.

I grew up in a small town in Northern California in the mid fifties. Like most small California towns in those days it’s main industry was agriculture. Many families had migrated there during the Dust Bowl of the thirties to find work in the fields or one of the canneries. My fathers family were what was called ‘Okies’

who had come from Oklahoma. It was a diverse town in many ways with Mexicans, Native Americans, and Europeans and even one Japanese family that owned the chicken ranch where my mother bought eggs. What it didn’t have was one single black person.

My six sisters and I worked along side our parents picking fruit when the season permitted. The small income my mother earned during crab season at one of the local fisheries sustained us through the winter. We had no television, no money for movies, and no internet. Our whole belief system was solely molded by school. books and family.

Books in my young life were predominately made up of fairy tales. nursery rhymes and “Horton Hears A Who” which message was lost on me until I read it to my own children years later.

School consisted of the 3r’s, reading, riting and ritmatic. Diversity and tolerance were not taught. Social issues were not discussed and political correctness did not exist.

That brings us to family. My father whom I loved dearly, had a name for everybody. They were the nips, the wasp, the coons and Jew bastards. He rarely spoke of anyone without referencing their nationality in some derogatory way. Being from the south he directed his most vile contempt towards Afro-Americans.