When i was a boy

When I was a boy......
You could have a golliwog as a toy
you could collect golliwog badges from robertsons jam
you could sing baa baa black sheep...not baa baa multicoloured sheep
we weren't racist as we hadn't seen anyone that wasn't white except on Tarzan
the only bother we had in the street was when an Irish family moved in and the kids used to stand on the fence spitting at us while calling us "proddy dogs"

 

When I was a boy, life was simple.
Playing out all day and, ,coming home late at night in the summer, after long long days
Searching for gun shaped sticks before you could start a game of war
Buidling the best dens
Looking cool on my gold Chopper
Living in a more innocent time when 'looking cool on my chopper' didn't draw chuckles and smirks and double entendres..
A time when the very worst thing I had to worry about was finding a big dock leaf if I got stung in nettles
Big crusty elbow and knee scabs that you could pick for days! TRY and get a scab like you used to when you were 7 or 8. It's impossible!

 

Good to read all these and life now gives us so much more, we can communicate in so many ways, right now I'm sitting in Coxhoe talking to who knows who in places I do not know, thats very good but we all know can also be very dangerous.

Racism is still there and we dont have to look for to find it, however multi culturism(I tried) brings us so much and today, red and white or black and white, we will cheer on our boys, enjoy the skills of our boys and ours they will be and colour of skin will matter not.

Homophobia is still rife but better than it was, christ it was illegal when I was young, a crime, homosexuallity that is not homophobia.

Life is both better and worse, I suppose thats progress, . good and bad, its down to us people at the end of the day and like it or not, bad people will always be bad people

 

I am a child of the sixties,born in sunderland 1960 ........I remember when my first pubic hair appeared and when my klangers dropped i also remember the first time i saw a black person in the flesh in 1968 ( i can still see his face today).....i survived unscathed!...the times were different.....I could not be racist i had no one to be racist to..... racism as an entity did not really reach the public arena it was a strange duopoly going on......in polite society education government ect.... we british are fair to everybody(oh no we were not)there was supposed to be no overt racism from the public bodies..but underneath there was a colonial undercurrent rife within them ..we can have them here as workers but they not really british and they would never be equal......On a human level your mother would not want you bringing one home and marriage was only for the foolhardy...on the tv they (like women)would never have a position of the lead role and were just cannon fodder.... and you would not see a black man kissing a white women (the scene where kirk kissed uhura was cut from star treck ..or a lynch mob would follow)shows like curry and chips,were the norm and no one thought anything about it(i do disagree about love thy neighbour and till death do us part i thought they had elements is parody and one of the first shows (ltn)where the black character won anything and more importantly was the co lead...if you dont see them they are not there )But things change the first show i think to have a black lead was I spy from america ( can any name the first british show to have a significant black lead)then as in america it was the sports where things were to change for the better then the rest of society catches up..i think today is a different world.......improved in many respects but still rife with racism from all sides but eventually this will diminish as our society becomes more intertwined it may take several more generations but the melting pot has just started cooking its like dropping a pebble of enlightenment in a lake the ripplesare slowly spreading out but eventually they will reach everyone ..........Am i a racist.. i do not think so, i do not believe that i am any better than anybody else because of thr colour of their skin....do i sometimes in private use some derrogatory terms against somebody who is not white well yes i probably do but yet i also use some similar language against the french the welsh scots and especially gingers dont get me started on the yanks so i say that a measure of integration is when you are treated the same as everybody else well in my world they have and more inportantly i would welcome my son if he brought home any non white totty

 

Strange thing this racism....

It's all blown out of proportion...

Iv'e been accused of it lately...on here...turned a blind eye...

Sure most say things out of term at times...but don't mean owt.

Some people need to get a grip, starting with politicians.