Having attended the cinema school at the University of Southern California in the mid '60s, I can attest to the atmosphere alluded to by Edward. When I spent a few weeks in New York in the early '60s, when I met New Yorkers in a social milieu, and they found out I was a Southerner, the shades were off. They assumed I was as much a racist as they. This was not the case, and it made me very uncomfortable. I suspect the writers of this show, which I have never seen, and do not intend to see, are engaged in a perhaps unconscious plan to make all white people of any influence appear to be racists, as the current administration and their supporters are trying to do to deter dissent from their political agenda. A large portion of the press are assisting in this campaign. John Peter Zenger must be spinning in his grave. Instead of fostering reasoned debate, parts of the press are trying to stifle dissent by these specious charges, in my opinion.
You mentioned Lee's daughter; when I was in Photo School in Pensacola in 1957, a white and black friend and I, in dress whites, got on a bus at midnight to return to the base. We were the only people on the bus, and occupied seats near the front. The driver sat for a moment, then got up and approached us. He was very apologetic, but told us that our black friend would have to move to the rear of the empty bus. We were astounded. The other white guy was from Kansas City, and the black guy was from Georgia, as was I. We had gone to boot camp together, as a Georgia Company, which, because of the need to fill out the roster, had also included nine Californians and one Oklahoma Kiowa Apache. Perhaps this sprinkling of difference had changed us to some extent.
Back on the bus, we all looked at each other, I suppose to see what Mitch, the black guy, would do. We were all eighteen, just starting out on potential Naval careers, and had no idea what might happen if we made a scene. Mitch stood up; Mark and I did as well. We all looked at each other. The driver had expressed his sorrow, but was "following orders".
As one, the three of us all went to the last seat in the bus and sat down. I don't think any of us were proud, but we had done the best our young minds could do, and at least stuck with our shipmate in a bad situation. Almost ten years later, at a party in Virginia, another guest took note of a positive remark of mine about MLK Jr. He, in almost a friendly advisory tone, told me the KKK might burn a cross on my lawn for such comments. I looked him in the eye, not knowing if he was a member of the KKK, or just giving me a "friendly" warning, and said, " You tell them for me, that if anyone burns a cross on my lawn, they had better not stand in the light of the fire." He nodded. Nothing else was said on the subject, and no one showed up for target practice.
I apologize for injecting so much personal history into the discussion, but I believe it alludes in a way to the way my folks felt when they went to war in 1861; they were not defending slavery, because they owned no slaves. I suspect they held beliefs about black people commensurate with their times, but they fought because they believed their home state was being invaded by an army who wanted to force them to do something their state had decided to resist. They fought to defend their homes. Stan