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An Open Thank You to Champions of Human Dignity


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Last night I was reading about the civil rights movement (US) in the 1960s. One man told his story of walking with some friends into a restaurant to be served a cup of coffee, every day for six months. They were refused service because they were African-American and in the South, but in the end they were served because they persisted in doing right.

 

Of course, I've heard about this all my life, but it just really hit home tonight.... A friend of ours gave us some gift money to take the family out to Olive Garden. The restaurant host, a black man, seated us. Our waitress, Olga, took our order and politely waited on us. People seated nearby commented on our beautiful daughters. The restaurant manager, a friendly Asian/East Indian man, liked chatting with our girls so much, he went away and came back with three coupons for free children's meals. :D

 

The whole place was calm, peaceful, yet bustling with that energy that is typical of Olive Gardens everywhere we've ever been. There were people of every size, race, skin tone, and ethnicity imaginable. Suddenly, looking around at that scene, it hit me like a brick. If we were time-warped back to 1960 in some places THIS SCENE WOULD NOT BE PERMITTED.

 

In my own parents' lifetimes, this would have been someone's dream, "that all men should live together as brothers." I never understood the words of Dr. Martin Luther King so powerfully until tonight. I will never know them from the perspective of the people who were shut out and marginalized.

 

Imagine, the back of the bus... My dad is in his late seventies, and he still talks about how he saw segregation firsthand so many years ago. But that was only a few years before I was born (1967)! I don't know why it never hit me before: Not that long ago, tonight's scene in the Olive Garden -- something I've always experienced here in New Jersey and have simply taken for granted -- would not have been allowed to happen.

 

How much we would have missed!

 

If you are the descendant of someone who stood up for human dignity, please hug and thank that person for me. :grouphug:

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Nice post.:) My parents did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they did right was to teach us from birth that you never judge a person by the color of their skin.

 

I just read MLK's speech a few days ago and was very inspired by it. I'd never read the whole thing before. It must have been an amazing thing to have heard it in person.

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In my area of the country, Woolworth's lunch counters were one place where lots of sit-ins were staged. Our city history museum has terrific photos of the civil rights movement here in town that includes photos of such sit-ins.

 

In the small city where I used to go to the orthodontist, I remember that we went into a Woolworth for lunch one day while there and there was some sort of problem with someone who wanted to be served who they were refusing. Apparently, Woolworth had quite a reputation. This would have been sometime between 1972-74, so relatively late for such activities to still have been occurring..... At the time, of course, I didn't understand what was going on and my mom wouldn't talk about it at all....

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It still happens sometimes, and not just in the south.

I live in the Bay Area, a pretty liberal place, pretty well mixed.

About 12 years ago I visited a Marie Callendars' restaurant for lunch with a good friend of mine who is Native American and really looks it--a husky guy with a long braid. I've eaten at this place many times, and have always had great service.

They took one look at us and parked us in a room with no lights or heat--there was a window, so it wasn't dark, but it was the only room in the place that didn't have a light on. We sat there being ignored for 20 minutes. No water, nothing. I went to the front, and asked if there was a problem. After a few more minutes, our waitress showed up with QUITE an attitude. We had terrible service the whole time, and no one else was seated into that room. It was abundantly clear why this happened.

Afterwards I mentioned this to a couple of other people I knew, and a Hispanic friend of mine told that it was always like that there, and that whenever she asked for a table she used an 'American' name or she wouldn't end up getting one unless she asked repeatedly.

Needless to say, I did not go back there for a long, long time.

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It still happens sometimes, and not just in the south.

I live in the Bay Area, a pretty liberal place, pretty well mixed.

About 12 years ago I visited a Marie Callendars' restaurant for lunch with a good friend of mine who is Native American and really looks it--a husky guy with a long braid. I've eaten at this place many times, and have always had great service.

They took one look at us and parked us in a room with no lights or heat--there was a window, so it wasn't dark, but it was the only room in the place that didn't have a light on. We sat there being ignored for 20 minutes. No water, nothing. I went to the front, and asked if there was a problem. After a few more minutes, our waitress showed up with QUITE an attitude. We had terrible service the whole time, and no one else was seated into that room. It was abundantly clear why this happened.

Afterwards I mentioned this to a couple of other people I knew, and a Hispanic friend of mine told that it was always like that there, and that whenever she asked for a table she used an 'American' name or she wouldn't end up getting one unless she asked repeatedly.

Needless to say, I did not go back there for a long, long time.

:iagree: I grew up in Northern CA and recall eating at a Sambo's as a kid in the early 70's. Looking at the pics of the restaurant, thinking to myself this is a bad advertising idea.

 

My mom would tell me stories of her growing up in Texas during segregation times... signs at stores saying no Negroes or Mexicans allowed, attending a run down school for (only) Mexican students while the white students attended a new school across town, and so on. Yes, it does make one think.

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It still happens sometimes, and not just in the south.

I live in the Bay Area, a pretty liberal place, pretty well mixed.

About 12 years ago I visited a Marie Callendars' restaurant for lunch with a good friend of mine who is Native American and really looks it--a husky guy with a long braid. I've eaten at this place many times, and have always had great service.

They took one look at us and parked us in a room with no lights or heat--there was a window, so it wasn't dark, but it was the only room in the place that didn't have a light on. We sat there being ignored for 20 minutes. No water, nothing. I went to the front, and asked if there was a problem. After a few more minutes, our waitress showed up with QUITE an attitude. We had terrible service the whole time, and no one else was seated into that room. It was abundantly clear why this happened.

Afterwards I mentioned this to a couple of other people I knew, and a Hispanic friend of mine told that it was always like that there, and that whenever she asked for a table she used an 'American' name or she wouldn't end up getting one unless she asked repeatedly.

Needless to say, I did not go back there for a long, long time.

 

Oh, wow. My husband is from California -- he grew up in Irvine (when it was orange groves and dirt roads) and then lived in San Jose from his teens until he met me. I'll ask him if he ever experienced this at Marie Callendar's -- because I know his family always went there AND his family is all 100% Egyptian. He was born here, but he still looks Egyptian, though in California he was often mistaken for being Mexican.

 

He learned to say (in VERY bad Spanish pronunciation), "Yo no hablo espanol. Yo no soy mexicano, yo soy egypto..." and the Mexicans would walk away laughing their heads off.... :lol:

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Good grief! I've never heard of a restaurant with a name like that! And I'm shocked that a state like California, which I've always thought of as so forward thinking and modern, would exhibit prejudice to multiple ethnic groups that have always been common to that area!

 

I have a vague memory of eating at one when I was about 5 or 6. Don't remember what part of the country though...

 

With the anniversary of the Challenger explosion, our paper has had articles about Ronald McNair since he's from SC. I'm so glad that much has changed. The racism isn't generally as overt as it used to be. It's really still there in a lot of ways though... but I like to think we'll continue to make progress.

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Good grief! I've never heard of a restaurant with a name like that! And I'm shocked that a state like California, which I've always thought of as so forward thinking and modern, would exhibit prejudice to multiple ethnic groups that have always been common to that area!

 

I was shocked, too. Just up the road is the Denny's that actually was sued for not serving African Americans equally with others. That shocked me, too.

 

You don't hear people condone it here, though. At least I don't. Everyone is shocked together, rather than everyone quietly wishing that they could do the same, which is how it sometimes feels elsewhere.

 

I'm an 'if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem' kind of person, so I speak up when I see something like that.

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