Rosa Parks
- Thread starter Euronymous
- Start date
It's hard nowadays for youngsters, who take racial integration for granted, to realize what a terrifically dangerous and brave act that was. It doesn't sound much, but it was so symbolic, and only people who've been actively oppressed would probably recognize its full value. It's also hard to believe that it was that short time ago that the USA was in full racist mode.
They took their bigotry with them abroad, too: when I began working for the Saudi oil company in 1972, it was mostly American-managed. It was only a few years before I arrived that the water fountains in the buildings had had 'Non-Arabs' and 'Arabs' signs removed. It was a few more years before they weren't allowed to recruit and demand a photograph of the applicant. As soon as that practice stopped, there were suddenly black Americans being hired. Many of the Saudis didn't like this any more than the redneck oilmen, since slavery had only been abolished in Saudi Arabia in 1961 (yes, that IS 1961, not 1861!) and as the slaves had been mostly black Nubians, they didn't like the idea of "ex-slaves" coming in to manage their affairs. To this day, Saudis do not consider marrying a dark-skinned person to be as socially acceptable as marrying a light one. There was a huge rush in the 1970s, on the back of oil wealth and travel opportunities, to get European, Egyptian, Jordanian and Philippina brides before the government made marrying foreign brides illegal without prior permission.
There's still such a depressingly long, long way to go, all round the world, before racism is finally tapped on the head.
They took their bigotry with them abroad, too: when I began working for the Saudi oil company in 1972, it was mostly American-managed. It was only a few years before I arrived that the water fountains in the buildings had had 'Non-Arabs' and 'Arabs' signs removed. It was a few more years before they weren't allowed to recruit and demand a photograph of the applicant. As soon as that practice stopped, there were suddenly black Americans being hired. Many of the Saudis didn't like this any more than the redneck oilmen, since slavery had only been abolished in Saudi Arabia in 1961 (yes, that IS 1961, not 1861!) and as the slaves had been mostly black Nubians, they didn't like the idea of "ex-slaves" coming in to manage their affairs. To this day, Saudis do not consider marrying a dark-skinned person to be as socially acceptable as marrying a light one. There was a huge rush in the 1970s, on the back of oil wealth and travel opportunities, to get European, Egyptian, Jordanian and Philippina brides before the government made marrying foreign brides illegal without prior permission.
There's still such a depressingly long, long way to go, all round the world, before racism is finally tapped on the head.