Okay. Here is how the Universe works.
Last night, we were watching TV. To be exact, it was streaming CBS All Access, and on most nights, we end our nighttime shows with a dose of Perry Mason. Oh, how we love to watch Perry sleuth. Anyway, in one scene, there were about four or five attractive, svelte women on the screen. Mary turns to me and says, “There are never any fat women on Perry Mason.”
I knew what she meant. But, after some thought, I replied that it was true, and for that era of film and TV, there weren’t really any heavy women being portrayed, except for the black woman who played “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind.
So. This morning when I first check my email loops, I see that it is Hattie McDaniel’s birthday. Yes, the woman who played Mammy in Gone With the Wind was born on June 10, 1895. Her smiling face on my screen, reminding me of her role, her Oscar, which she received for that role.
It reminded me too, of her life, and the discrimination she faced.
Yes, those were the 1940 Oscars. The Twelfth Academy Awards took place at the Coconut Grove Restaurant of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. McDaniel received one of the Oscars, in fact. But she wasn’t awarded the trophy as all the other actors that year. She and her escort were required to sit at a segregated table for two at the far wall of the room. They weren’t permitted in the Coconut Grove Restaurant because they were black. Her white agent, William Meiklejohn, sat at the same table with them.
What a thing for Hattie. The first black woman to win an Oscar. The hotel had a strict no-blacks policy, but allowed McDaniel in as a “favor.” But the night didn’t end there. No. The discrimination continued after the award ceremony, when all of her white costars went to a “no-blacks” club. Again, McDaniel was denied entry.
As if that weren’t enough. Another black woman did not win an Oscar again for 50 years. That happened when Whoopi Goldberg won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Ghost. By then, McDaniels was long gone, having died of breast cancer in 1952, at the age of 59.
Many love the film, Gone With the Wind, but it embraces the way our culture has taken a path of racism against black people throughout history. From its content to its creation. Weeks prior to McDaniel winning her Oscar, there was even more controversy. The producer of the movie, David Selznick, omitted the faces of all the black actors on the posters advertising the movie in the South. And worse? None of the black cast members, including Hattie McDaniel, were even allowed to attend the premiere for the movie. The movie which romanticized the South and the fact that it embraced slavery.
America, land of the free.
I live in a white community. Yes, according to population statistics at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/preblecountyohio — Preble County is 97% white. And, in recent days, I have seen many white people post comments on Facebook, in which they belittle the Black Lives Matter movement, for any number of reasons.
But the real reason is they are not ready to accept black people, brown people, as equals. That qualifies them as racists if you ask me.
Until we admit we have a problem, we can’t fix the problem.
All of this, as Hattie watched the rest of the actors go up on stage, accepting their awards, for doing the same thing she did. But in their white skin. Home of the free.
And that’s how the Universe works when you watch Perry Mason on a Tuesday night.
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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
— Thomas Jefferson
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We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
— Will Rogers
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All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
— George Orwell
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