hidden discrimination

Are you going to go shopping on Black Friday for the sales?   I did a couple of times a long time ago but there were way too many people for the number of items that they had in stock.   But why do they call it Black Friday and not just a After Thanksgiving Sale Friday?

In 1970 when I worked at a large metropolitan hospital an African American male janitor who worked evenings use to come to x-ray to chit chat with us.   He had gone to the University of Alabama and played college football there (the Crimson Tide is what the football team was called).   I found him to be quite an intelligent fellow and we became friends.    He started educating me on discrimination (at that young age I thought that I knew everything about anything.   Boy, was I wrong).    He told me about hidden discrimination.   I told him that I had never heard of hidden discrimination.   Then he asked me why is Angel food cake white

and Devils food cake is very dark brown, essentially black.

Hidden discrimination!   White is angelic and black is devilish.   I had to agree with him.   I began to see the light.

He asked me what a white lie was.   I told him that it was a good lie.   Yep, white is good.  Another example of hidden discrimination.   Even today, in large corporations, when management has to wear a hard hat, it is usually white.   Like in the old westerns the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats.   I had to agree with him that discrimination was still threaded throughout our culture.   We talked on a variety of topics that night from "block busting" to "where can a black man get a flesh covered band aid in America".   I learned a lot from him.   Where is that African American today?   He is 74 and living in Nevada.    I wonder if he realizes the impression that he made on me?    He was a good person.    I always liked this picture because of its irony.

Have a good day and listen and learn from others.   You just never know from whom you will learn some of life's lessons and have your eyes opened some as mine were on that evening.     Lew