On a rare occasion that I saw my family in the S.O.; my father asked me what the Church thought about homosexuals. I replied ” You mean queers”?
I have nothing against them, at least if I want to live I don’t. Most of the staff at the HIV Neurological Research clinic in San Diego are homo and when I was almost dead I replied on them to save my life.

Dear Katherine:
I agree completely. Now my last wife was black but had a lighter tone. Her father is is black as Moses but I believe that her mother was white. Re-inforcing this is that her father remarried to a white lady. I never met the lady as apparently she killed herself while on Psych drugs Now my ex wife has always referred to herself as black but she has said to me: ” I have nothing against niggers” “I think that everyone should own one”.
I have never used that word as it would by suicide around black people although I still would not use it even if it were not

Hi Balletlady,
Obviously you’ve got some New York Stories too 🙂
So, you’re a mutt and so am I. Wasp from waaay back on my father’s side and first generation Italian-American on my mother’s side. Yes, that was a close call because Per and I were eyeball to eyeball with these young men in a crowded subway car when he , in their view, unprovoked, intruded into their private conversation and mortally insulted them. They had no idea how innocently and without prejudice or animus he said the N word. He was trying to be LIKE them, i.e., what he considered to be New York City-American “cool”. He thought THEY were New York Cool and he LOVED American sports. Like many Scandinavians (in Scandinavia, not here) he had no problem with dark skinned peoples. So it was this innocent and good natured outreach on Per’s part but these guys from the ‘hood had no way of knowing that and the effect on them of his saying this with a smile was shocking and horrible. On their faces could be seen the rage and pain, and a kind of grief, almost…which was why I began babbling explanations and apologies FAST. And lastly, yes, in the country wherein I lived for two years when I was very young I saw many people of mixed race type with regard to hair color and texture, skin color, eye color, facial features – too many variations of all of the above to even list out here.

(Continued)
In some old recruit promo as I can recall( correct me if I am wrong LRH said something like: Later on, if we make it, what will your answer be to the question: ” Did you help” . I don’t know if we will make it. I don’t know if I will make it; I could easily be dead before you read these words.

LRH said that in a scale from Right to Wrong the Wrongest one could be was DEAD.
You know, I actually agree with some of the bullshit they are putting out. I think that Mike and Leah are engaged in hate speech. THEY BETTER! If they were not trying to get people worked up so that they would get off of their fucking asses and DO something they would not be doing their jobs. Now personally (but this is just me) I would prefer that we just went in there and took those fuckers out.
The only reasion I say that is that they have proven again and again that they would do the same to us.
But then, I understand if you fine people don’t feel the same way. You are not quite dead yet; and you want to stay alive.
It is too late for me. If I can be of any use even though already dead it sounds like a good idea to me.

Hi Aqua! I had to LOL…as a teen my BEST friend (Ruth Jean) was Norwegian on BOTH sides. Her dad 100% her mom 100% & they spoke their native tongue. Her father worked in New Jersey for Exxon(Esso) as did two other neighbors…Sven & Ole…..her father’s name was Johnnie….DK the Norwegian name for it because he HAD a brother living in New Jersey who name was John as well??? Her mom very quiet, her dad very verbose & outspoken.

My Bff “Jean ” was semi fluent in the Norwegian language too….understood more than she spoke. ALL of these families lived in Bay Ridge Brooklyn in the Norwegian section….they all were extremely prejudiced which surprised me when they would refer to the “N” word so casually.

My Bff Jean’s father had issues with Blacks, Italians, Latinos etc. It was a real headspinner…in that at 18 she became pregnant out of wedlock & married a guy who was Puerto Rican…..a real stunner to her parents.

Riding on a bus, subway or the LIRR in NYC I’ve seen & heard the angry language when the “N” word is used by a non black…highly confrontational & with “weapons visible” on a NYC bus…if you get my drift. I got off the bus ASAP.

I can imagine your terror at that moment of time…decades ago I’d seen a group of ten to twenty kids in a riot & it was horrific with names hurled back & forth, fists flying…bottles thrown…then the police came. To be ALONE with only one other person who has NO INSIGHT into the reality of what COULD have happened….I bet your life flashed before your eyes as you quickly to him off the train safely with many apologies…..which as we know often times do NOT work.

A friend in Georgia 30 years ago married a Black man, he was WONDERFUL, a professional, hard worker, highly intelligent, GREAT family man…her family turned their back on her….ignored her son…their Grandson because he was the product of a “N”….too sad. He is and always was a wonderful young man.

Me…Well, I am a “mutt”….Irish, French, German, Polish, Lithuanian with a smattering of the understanding of bits & parts of all those languages. When I worked in NYC for s “certain group of financial money lenders” (who I refuse to name!)…now THEY were really prejudiced & surprised I wasn’t.

I have heard Blacks call each other the “N” word…out loud…& I’ve heard OTHERS use that name to them out loud. Several of my BFF’s ARE Black….they jokingly use that word to each other as in “get yo” “N” ass over here”…. & then laugh..but they say they hate that word too.

They tell me that I am “an adopted Black”….because we are in and out with each other. YES we get “stared at” when we are together at lunch or dinner or shopping & we are having a great time together laughing & locking arms as we walk…(a bit distance now with the Covid) but STILL together giving each other opinions while we try on outfits!

Add to that my God Daughter J’nae looking more like me than her mother who is Caucasian with brown hair, medium skin, eyes which are between brown and blue. J’nae’s hair is like Shirley Temple’s…loose curls…very light brown with a lot of blonde & the biggest bluest eyes! Her dad is 100% Black & their oldest daughter Kele’ looks like him to a tee!

Katherine in Cali….I don’t like that word either….so sad for all

Li did a Comm-Ev in the late 80’s on a male staff member on the Freewind who repeatedly wore female unifoms to post after being told by COCMO SHIP not to do so.

“Ed Parkin has ” volunteers”.
That is a euphemism for ” Slaves”.
I should know; I was one of them though I had never met Ed Parkin.
I was freed; not by “Honest Abe Lincoln, but by some cat only known as: Death.

Bill, not to cavil with you but only because I’m curious: was your ex-wife a light skinned black lady? Because if so, there are many mixed race, light complected “blacks” – mostly not Americans but frequently Caribbeans – who are actually more white than black and its not unusual for them to consider themselves NOT black at all, with darker skinned blacks being the “other” to them. My father’s 3rd wife was mixed race, a kind of light coffee color. Like many of her class and socio-economic group in that country she did not consider herself in the least to be black and would refer to the much darker skinned people who worked in our house – in front of them – as “these people”. Which I considered highly offensive and rude to them. But she would talk like that in front of them. One “had to be careful” because “these people” were sneaky and would steal from you if you didn’t watch them. “These people” were stupid and untrustworthy. She would give forth with such insults right in front of them, like they were part of the furniture. And what she said was not true at all about them. They were highly trustworthy and not stupid, just poor peasant people without educations. Not stupid at all and I trusted them highly and so did my father. Boy did they hate her! But of course they needed their jobs and said nothing. But they couldn’t stand her. She thought nothing of it though. Like they were part of the furniture with no feelings. Totally the “other”. In her mind and in her extremely class and color conscious and insular society, neither she nor anyone of means with light skin was “black”.