I grew up during an era of black-and-white television, two daily newspapers that most Black families subscribed to, and a system of apartheid that forced Black unity. That’s why I can relate to the following revelations provided to my wife 15 years ago. I offer a few personal observations at the end:
‘We’ survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos and lined with lead…
We took aspirin, ate blue cheese tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. We ate government cheese, drank whole milk, and prepared meals from scraps ‘given away’ by the corner grocer…
Then, after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright-colored lead-based paints…
Teachers would visit our homes if we were doing poorly in school…
We had no childproof lid on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets. When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets or knee pads, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking…
As children, we would ride in cars without seat belts or airbags. It wasn’t unusual to stand behind the driver, shouting in his ear…
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a plastic bottle…
Take-out food was limited to fish and chips, McDonald’s, or KFC. Our mothers tried to convince us that a ‘ghetto burger’ was just as good…
Even though all the shops closed at 6 p.m. and didn’t open on the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death…
We were our father’s remote control devise…. The television went off at 11 p.m., and the secondary use of clothes hangers was antennas…
We shared a soda from one bottle with four friends, and no one died…
We could collect old drink bottles, cash them in at the corner store, and buy fruit tingles and some fire crackers to blow up frogs with…
We ate cupcakes, white bread, and real butter, flushed it down with sugary sodas, and weren’t overweight because we were always playing outside–until the street lights came on…
We would leave home in the morning and play all day…
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars…
We didn’t have PlayStation, Nintendo, X-boxes, or video games. Our televisions only had three channels. The television screen was 50% of the box, with no surround sound, remotes, or color…
No mobile phones, personal computers, or internet. We had friends, and we went outside and found them…
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents…
We ate worms and mud pies from the dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever…
You could only buy Easter eggs and hot cross buns at Easter time (no really!)…
We were given BB guns and slingshots for our 10th birthdays…
We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956…
We rode our unlicensed bikes, walked to a friend’s house, knocked on the door, rang the bell, or just yelled for them…
Football and basketball tryouts drew all neighborhood kids, although we knew not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t have to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!…
Only girls had earrings. Tattoos signified you were a former prisoner. Naturals were a hair style and not the result of laziness…
Our teachers used to belt us with paddles and straps, and bullies always ruled the playground at school…
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law…
Our parents got married before they had children and didn’t name their children after alcohol, drugs, or gangstas…
The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideals. We had freedom, failure, success, and responsibility, and we learned…how to deal with it all…
(Editor’s note: The following addendums are based on my experiences.)
We took pride in our penmanship, which included the teaching of cursive. Our teachers demanded clarity, professionalism, and style…
Accompanying our fathers to the corner bar on Saturday afternoon was considered part of the rites of passage.
No, we didn’t drink alcohol. Usually, a couple of young boys would be sitting at the bar drinking a soda while listening to our fathers and his friends exaggerating or telling lies.
Obviously, our mothers thought we went to the hardware store or the mechanic (although I assumed they knew the truth)…
Fathers, uncles, and grandfathers taught us to hunt and fish. Again, this was part of the rights of the passage, as well as male bonding time.
Three out of four households had two full-time parents (nuclear families)…
Because of hyper-segregation (we weren’t allowed to be caught after dark anywhere north of Keefe Ave. or west of 20th Street)…
Black professionals were our neighbors. Seeing a doctor, lawyer, or teacher cutting grass provided us with ‘real’ heroes and role models…
Speaking of cutting lawns, every family—mostly renters—took pride in our environment. The exceptions were recent ‘migrants’ from the deeper than deep south.
Seniors would try to justify the absence of grass by explaining, ‘in the country, they stamped out the grass so they could see snakes approaching’…
We were taught to respect our elders entrusted to discipline us when needed…
We were ‘po, but not poor, and we knew the difference…
Having a smaller and more cohesive community had much to do with it. Still, back when I was growing up, we knew who Black politicians were, held them accountable, and even attended political meetings—often at churches…
One generation removed from migration, education was considered a top priority, regardless of income, occupation, or social status…
Mothers taught their daughters to ‘save’ themselves until marriage—yeah, most teen girls were virgins— Christians— and viewed themselves through a moral lens. They taught all girls to be women, but virtuous girls grew up to be ladies…
Many mothers told their daughters the quarter rule— put a quarter between your legs and don’t let it drop until you’re married…
The handful of young girls who got pregnant mysteriously disappeared (visited relatives down south) until the child was born…
Since Milwaukee renters were not able to file complaints against police (yeah, that was the law), we accepted the butt-kicking provided by racist cops as part of the apartheid paradigm…
Our parents would stand in long lines, in the snow, rain, and heat, to vote. It was important to them…
We could only go outside once our homework was completed and checked. Every family member would clean the house and wash and iron our clothes on Saturdays for the coming week…
We were encouraged to read, and family outings to the library were a weekly ‘event’…
Our community was not an urban war scene but an actual community.Neighbors knew each other, helped, and worked together for the common good…
While we didn’t fully understand it, we carried on various Afrikan cultural paradigms…our communitywas a village with its own leadership structure, spiritual component, and family structures…
We saved our lunch money throughout the week to afford the ‘quarter’ parties…
We ate sugar and salad dressing sandwiches and drank sugar water…
Our music focused on romance instead of sexual exploitation, criminal behavior, and drugs…
I’m sure anyone over 60 can relate to some of these paradigms. The question is, were we better off ‘back-in-the-day’ than we are now?
Hotep.
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