Social Delimma! Friendship & Former Domestic Staff - Page 3

Originally Posted by SoCal2NYC

You're lucky that I didn't enact my right to prima nocta.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

An interesting anecdote, RSS. In those days, did the South still exhibit its antebellum side of Sir Walter Scott civility and mint juleps?

Originally Posted by imageWIS

I thought the state of New York has a ban on gay marriage?

Jon.

Originally Posted by RJman

Honestly, you two... Try harder.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

My question was quite sincere. I'd like to know if the South in those days was full of Tennessee Williams characters.

Originally Posted by RSS

I too was taught that. But fortunately, I don't accept all that I was taught. There are some "traditions" upon which it's worth turning my back. But then again ... long ago I stopped worrying about how others see or perceive me. I will always recall late August of 1967 ... the year desegregation came to the schools in my home town ... a city deep in the South. Prior to this time, I had been receiving a private education, but I asked my parents to place me in a local public school so that I might witness events first hand. For one semester -- and much to my surprise -- they agreed. The first day of school everyone gathered in the auditorium. But even as the more enlightened authorities tried to bring us together ... as children we allowed our race to divide us down the middle ... white on one side ... black on the other ... with not one exception. Of course, given the many less than subtle reminders of segregation so prevalent throughout the South ... it was not an easy divide to breach. It retrospect, I realize that we were doing what "tradition" expected of us ... what some hoped we'd always do ... even as others opened a new opportunity to us. We sat there for what seemed an eternity. Then the principal issued a challenge, "Until someone crosses to the other side of this room, classes will not begin." More time passed ... too much time ... and where I got the courage I will never know ... but I stood ... and crossed the divide of a room filled with silence. I settled into a chair next to a young man about my own age ... our eyes meeting for a brief moment ... but not a word was said. More time passed ... and then a girl behind me rubbed her finger across my neck. I turned to see what this was about when she playfully remarked, "I just wanted to see if that white rubbed off." The room erupted into laughter ... and at that moment, several others crossed the divide ... and in doing so began to destroy it. Perhaps this seems a small event ... and maybe it was. Perhaps I make too much of it ... but in the deep South at that time ... my action was something that was not simply the unexpected ... it just wasn't done. In fact, in the weeks that followed, the quiet of night was often interrupted by the sound of a brick crashing through our front window. Often the bricks were inscribed with less than complementary words. Of course, doing what is expected of me never really got me anywhere. Only in doing the unexpected -- sometimes doing that which isn't done to the point of risking disapproval -- have I found myself taken to new places.