(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Story I Wish I'd Known [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-02
Jimmy and Roslyn Carter learned about a Black woman who had been wrongly convicted of murder. They decided to do something for her, so they got her out of prison, as Carter could do when he was Governor of Georgia and had her come work for them as their youngest daughter, Amy’s, nanny.
When they went to Washington, they arranged for her to come too, to live in the White House and look after Amy.
The first I learned about it was watching a skit on Saturday Night Live.
SNL had begun during the Nixon administration, when they had plenty of material for their satire. But Nixon was gone. Ford, who had come across as an inept clown, was gone. In their place was a good, decent, honorable man, from Georgia.
What to do?
They did a sketch where the convict/nanny takes young Amy on her lap, and tells her the story of Goldilocks, using prison slang, and having Goldilocks rob a liquor store.
Hah! hah! hah!
Amy’s nanny was Black. Amy’s nanny had been in prison. Therefore, she must be a criminal. Therefore, the Carters were fools, because they let a criminal take care of their daughter.
Of course, they were from the south, and southerners weren’t like the rest of us.
We’d been saying that for years, the left and the right.
The south was segregated. There were whites only signs in public places.
We didn’t have those in the rest of the country, because Blacks and whites lived in different parts of town, and the Blacks knew where they were and weren’t welcome.
We conveniently forgot that the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was a nationwide organization, that, for a while controlled the state of Indiana. We never mentioned that it was illegal to be Black in Oregon.
Southerners were poor because they were lazy and stupid. Not because both Blacks and whites went to third rate public schools, unless they were wealthy enough, and white enough, to go to private school.
Leftists and rightists, wrote clever, witty pieces about “rednecks”, “crackers” and “hillbillies”.
So, when we elected a president from Georgia, it was just too easy to make him into a joke. He was Jed Clampett. He was Jeter Lester. He was the president from Dogpatch.
Rosalyn Carter wasn’t a woman; she was an iron magnolia.
It didn’t help that he asked Americans to make do with less. Of course, Ford had done the same thing, with public service ads that claimed inflation was caused by housewives who didn’t shop for bargains, but that was different. Carter actually meant what he said. That kind of message was dangerous.
So, we voted Carter out of office and voted in a grifter from Hollywood. We wound up working two jobs to make ends meet and got used to seeing panhandlers on every corner.
The convict nanny sketch was clever. But it wasn’t wise.
Perhaps it’s time for us to stop being clever and start being wise.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/2/2294730/-The-Story-I-Wish-I-d-Known?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
