Mainecoonmaniac
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I'll bet it hasn't changed much down there, eh?
When I saw this and I admit I might have mis-interpreted your meaning about "down there", I instantly recalled the Bilko episode where he had found a new army recruit from the Deep South who had the ability to throw a stone around a tree trunk in order to kill a squirrel to have for the family's supper. He persuades this innocent lad to meet a board of directors( of the N.Y. Yankees but not revealed) who are interested in seeing this person's throwing ability as a new pitcher.I'll bet it hasn't changed much down there, eh?
Also in 1955 people were not sure Hitler and other Nazis were really dead. We know now there were Nazis living in South America at the time. And we were in a period of low immigration, so any foreigners raised suspicion. People now seem willing to excuse almost anything, but regionalist bigotry still survives.
We all know that all photographers in public spaces are criminals or terrorists. New Jersey Transit ran a campaign recently (lots of posters in stations) showing a young man in a black hoodie with an ugly big DSLR taking a photo of a security camera, that urged riders to report "suspicious activity". I wasn't personally offended because the guy was shown holding a DSLR not a film camera (how could a film shooter be a terrorist I ask) but I did begin to refrain from taking my camera out while in a station or on a train. To be fair, I was never challenged by a railway employee; in fact, one time I was out by the tracks with my 8x10 Korona shooting an NJT train passing by and all that happened was the engineer blew the horn and waved at me. A friend was challenged once for shooting on the platform, but he wisely complied and didn't choose to argue the point. But another friend, who used to do location work for film companies, knew that the railroads only own the land within 12 feet of the tracks (the local municipalities own the stations) and anyhow NJT doesn't even own the rails (Amtrak does).
The Cold War with the Soviet Union was strong at the time. People were seeing Communist spies around every corner. Eastern European accents sounded suspicious. Remember those countries were behind the Iron Curtain.
Switzerland....where Robert Frank was from was most decidedly not behind the Iron Curtain....nor Eastern European.
Frank was from Zürich, so German-speaking Switzerland. When he did his travels for The Americans, he hadn't been here long, so probably spoke with a much stronger German accent than later in life (you still hear a bit of it in late interviews). Mistaking him for an East German communist spy would not have been out of context in these paranoid times.
Agreed.... not only foreigners....but the suspicion of any non-locals.... "you're not from around here, are you?" is a common tale of travellers in the USA.
Sorry folks. Sure, racism is everywhere, but the fact of the matter is that "the South" is generally more hostile to people of color. Look at the statistics, and news, etc. If you live there and don't want to be cast with the bad lots, do something about it.
My brother, who was an FBI agent at the time, drove from Atlanta to Alabama for a training at one point, and yes, he was stopped by a state police. Nothing happened since he had id et al, but there are reasons why I have not taken the great American road trips
Sorry folks. Sure, racism is everywhere, but the fact of the matter is that "the South" is generally more hostile to people of color. Look at the statistics, and news, etc. If you live there and don't want to be cast with the bad lots, do something about it.
My brother, who was an FBI agent at the time, drove from Atlanta to Alabama for a training at one point, and yes, he was stopped by a state police. Nothing happened since he had id et al, but there are reasons why I have not taken the great American road trips
Even in the more liberal area of Northern Virginia when I worked there from 2009 to 2014 too often when I went to lunch with my black supervisor, who was dressed in a suit and tie, and I who, was dressed Southern California casual, would start walking across the parking lot at the restaurant, and I would see the look of hate in some of the white people. They would never say anything but the body language and facial expressions said it all ====> "Who does that black @#$@# think he is?" We would talk about it when I mentioned it. I saw that often in northern Virginia but very rarely on the Northern US or Southern California.
Anyone who thinks that they do not need to read Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project is exactly the people who should read those books with their minds well open instead of the usual closed mindset.
Northern Virginia? The suburb of DC and not the South at all? They probably hated your Southern California casual.
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