h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many black people discovered if they stuck a turban on their head they could eat anywhere they wanted and would be treated with respect!

http://wunc.org/post/how-turbans-helped-some-blacks-go-incognito-jim-crow-era

That was a great read, Elektra!

What complete insanity racial discrimination is. Over here back not so long ago we had THREE non-white classifications: black, coloured, and Asian. Coloured and Asian had limited political rights in South Africa; blacks were all supposed to get their own homelands in time where they would have these rights - eventually.

Most white folks by the seventies and eighties did not see themselves as racists. We knew it was wrong to treat people unequally based on race. We got lectures against racism in elementary school. Offensive terms (using the Afrikaans equivalent of the n-word) for black people were considered serious crimes even in the seventies. But we (most of us anyways) supported Grand Apartheid and the war against the liberation movements, which was just sheer murder. And petty apartheid ... who was not allowed where. There was a major incident when a prominent non-white politician swam on a beach where he was not allowed to. He did it to make a statement. I mean, here was a guy, powerful, a respected figure, but he was not allowed to swim on a certain beach because his skin was a tad too dark!

I think I also mentioned to you how Chinese people were considered non-white but Japanese people were considered white (purely because the Chinese were communists but Japan was capitalist and had trade deals with SA).

The ridiculousness of this might become even clearer when you consider that by the Immorality Act, which outlawed interracial relationships, Chinese men would not be permitted to date Japanese women!

At least in the mid-eighties the Chinese got 'honorary white' status.

Some famous people visiting South Africa also got 'honorary white' status to try and stave off embarrassment ... but this didn't really work. Without the idea of honorary whites for instance, visiting sports teams would not be allowed to play as a team if they had a single non-white member (or a single white-member in a non-white team).

Gosh this lie about race is one of the worst things that ever happened to human culture. It is horrible how labeling can prevent people from achieving their own potential.

Norman Lear presented an interesting take on this in some of the TV series he produceds his "All in the Family" patriarch Archie Bunker was a blue collar racist from Boston ---sterotyping everyone. He always wanted Jewish doctors, and lawyers for example---no other race or ethnicity need apply. He was from Staten Island in New york City. Lear also presented black racists in "The Jeffersons" in the person of George Jefferson a successful dry cleaning magnate who was outraged at his white neighbour marrying a beautiful black woman.

Fortunately the younger generation finds all this total hogwash and there are a lot of mixed racial couples now--they can't believe the "old" days. Make me feel like a real dinosaur.