{"id":2497,"date":"2005-08-06T18:22:06","date_gmt":"2005-08-06T22:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=2497"},"modified":"2005-08-06T18:31:05","modified_gmt":"2005-08-06T22:31:05","slug":"manners-race-and-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2005\/08\/manners-race-and-respect\/","title":{"rendered":"Manners, Race, and Respect"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have always thought that one of the most telling and subtlety vicious aspect of segregation was the fact that a white person regardless of age or economic status could always call a black person, regardless of age or economic status, “boy” or “girl.” It is probably two years in Korea, but there is something uniquely and horribly offensive to me in the image of an insolent young white kid calling some grey-haired black patriarch “boy.” <\/p>\n

The movie The Ghosts of Mississippi<\/i>, which is otherwise not a cinematic masterpiece, tells the story of the decades-late trial of the murderer of Medgar Evers<\/a>, a black civil rights lawyer killed by the Klan in the 1963. In the movie, the young Mississippi DA who tries the case is played by Alec Baldwin, and for me the gracious formality with which he treats Evers’s widow is uniquely powerful. I am not an especially emotional guy, but for some reason watching Alec Baldwin call Whoopi Goldberg “ma’am” is an enactment of respect for equality and human dignity that literally brings tears to my eyes. The swelling music of the finale with justice achieved and Goldberg weeping with happiness does nothing for me. Simple graciousness and courtliness sans soundtrack, however, make me blubber. <\/p>\n

I am, alas, not a particularly mannered or gracious person. I worked for a judge, however, who in good Southern noblesse oblige fashion took such things seriously, albeit in his quirky, Southern-character kind of way. It is something that I admire even if I don’t have the patience, humility, or discipline to emulate him. I try, however, to make an extra effort for race and class. Jim has pointed out on a number of occasions that we probably all harbor half-hidden prejudices. I am not sure how far down the road of white-guilt and self-flagellation I am interested in going, but I think there is some truth to this insight. My response is that I make a consistent effort to always call any black person who I do not know “sir” or “ma’am.” The same is true of the mainly immigrant workers who are the janitors and physical support staff where I work. I don’t know if this is a racist, petty or snobbish gesture or unduly self-conscious or simply maudlin, but it is what I try to do. For me it is manners — particularly of the Southern variety modeled by my judge — that becomes my marker of human equality and dignity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always thought that one of the most telling and subtlety vicious aspect of segregation was the fact that a white person regardless of age or economic status could always call a black person, regardless of age or economic status, “boy” or “girl.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}