[Magdalen] The Deen controversy

[Jay Weigel]

David, Sunday afternoon I was listening online to a progressive talk show
from the Twin Cities (mainly because the host was talking to a healthcare
aid worker and it was fascinating). In the course of the discussion, the
host got off a line that was worthy of Garrison Keillor....."Thirty years
ago, diversity in the Twin Cities meant Andersons and Knutsons in the same
room." I nearly fell off my chair laughing!

Sixty years ago, the part of Madison, Wisconsin in which I grew up was also
pretty much lily-white. There were three African-American kids in my high
school of 1500 and a smattering of Asians (all Asian-American), plus a few
Hispanics, all from South America, and the requisite AFS students and a
fews immigrants from Europe. Almost all the African-Americans in town, and
there weren't many, lived in an area known as Greenbush or "the Bush" which
was also home to a large Italian-American population and a not
inconsiderable number of Jewish folks, although they were rapidly moving
westward, and those kids went to Central High School. The Bush was
urban-renewed in the early 60s, Central High closed in 1968, and new high
school, LaFollette, opened on the near southeast side around then, another
(Memorial) on the far west side about the same time, and there was a huge
demographic shift. Now West High, my former high school, is majorly
diverse, and even Memorial isn't lily-white. LaFollette has a big Hispanic
and Hmong population. East High is a hodgepodge but may be more white than
West, just not as affluent. Go figure. Madison is so changed I don't
recognize it any more.

On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> In a message dated 9/24/2014 10:25:24 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> michaudme at gmail.com writes:
>
> She  never used the N-word>>>>
>
> This word not only was never used in my family.  It wasn't even
> remotely on the horizon.
>
> In my home county of about 12,000 souls in NW Wisconsin,
> there were essentially no Blacks, Asians, or Latinos.  I believe
> the 1940 US Census asked about "Negro/White ancestry, and
> there was one "Negro" in the county.
>
> There were two rather wretched American Indian communities
> in the county (St. Croix Bands of Chippewa Tribe), at least one
> of which is now wealthy secondary to a large gambling casino.
> I had one American Indian in my high school class, and he was
> about as ethnically exotic as we got.
>
> IOW, one might as well be conversing about Martians as to
> carry on any meaningful conversation about "Negroes".  They
> didn't register on the local radar.
>
> My father, the county attorney, was involved frequently in the
> aftermath of drunken behavior on the American Indian reservations.
> I remember his muttering about "Keeping Indians away from 'fire-
> water' " (alcohol), recognizing the ethnic inability of American  Indians
> to handle alcohol - just as he recognized that his family could not
> handle booze.  That's as far as ethnic commentary went.
>
> OTOH, sharp critical commentary daily about FDR, the Pope, and the
> Axis leaders was all too familiar in the 1940's.
>
>
> David Strang.
>
>
>