Is you is or is you ain't integrated?

 When I was born, the suburb I lived in was sorta lily White and sorta not at all.  To wit, about half the residents were Jewish.  And twenty years earlier, none of those Jews could have bought a house there.  The deeds still had restrictions on them.


That changed after 1956, when the city went out of its way to achieve peaceful integration without "White flight."  And it worked for a long time.  I grew up in a town where integration was ordinary (this led to a lot of culture shock when I went off to college in the South).  I dated among different races and religions.  And I didn't think much  about it.  

But America was changing, too.  As witness:  here I am, 70 years old, and some of my in-laws are Black.  One of my first cousins is Asian.  Some are Jewish, some are Christian.  One of my kids has a transgender partner.  My circle of friends is integrated, just as it was in High School.  In fact, one of the Black regulars at my koffeeklatsch graduated High School with me.

I took this for granted for most of my life, but recent events are opening my eyes to how much things have changed.  The resurgence of White nationalism, the rise of anti-semitism and blatant racism...I never expected to see those. Those were "things that happened on television when I was a kid."

And now they're happening all around us.

How about you?  Is you is or is you ain't integrated?  

          AlextheKay misses the old days          


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