{"id":9512,"date":"2017-01-27T17:47:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T17:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/?p=9512"},"modified":"2017-01-27T17:47:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T17:47:15","slug":"cracks-in-my-rose-colored-glasses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2017\/01\/27\/cracks-in-my-rose-colored-glasses\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracks In My Rose-Colored Glasses"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"JoEllen
JoEllen Collins\u2014a longtime resident of the Wood River Valley\u2014is a teacher, writer, fabric artist, choir member and unabashedly proud grandma known as \u201cBibi Jo.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lately, I feel awash in sentiment as I say goodbye to friends and the world of my youth. I miss those rather innocent days and my loving family. I don my rose-colored glasses more than I used to, as least when considering the gifts I was given as a child.<\/p>\n

Oddly, after last year\u2019s upset at the lack of \u201ccolor\u201d in Academy Awards nominations, this year has seen a proliferation of fine movies by and about African Americans, portrayals about the time when I was young and racial lines were still clearly drawn in our country. I have been moved by the reminders of how far we have come and yet how much we still need to do to heal the scars we all acknowledge as inflicted by racial injustice.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t recall my parents ever exhibiting bias towards others because of race, though I did read \u201cLittle Black Sambo,\u201d listened to radio\u2019s \u201cAmos and Andy,\u201d and saw Disney\u2019s \u201cSong of the South\u201d that reinforced racial stereotypes, though supposedly \u201cin history.\u201d I remember being embarrassed even as a small child by my aunt commenting on \u201ccute little pickaninnies\u201d and her use of the outdated label \u201ccolored.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many recent films we experience anew the strictures imposed by our society on those of \u201cblack\u201d color. While I have appreciated viewing authentic set d\u00e9cor, clothing, big old cars, and settings, I couldn\u2019t help but be ashamed, even though I may have been too young to correct them, of the fear and suffering of so many innocent citizens of my beloved USA.<\/p>\n

In \u201cLoving,\u201d we observe the anguish of a humble rural couple guilty of the \u201ccrime\u201d of miscegenation, an action which led eventually to a Supreme Court decision permitting interracial marriage. In \u201cHidden Figures,\u201d brilliant black women, unacknowledged but essential to the success of America\u2019s space program in the 1960s, worked in a room entered beneath the sign \u201cColored Computers.\u201d There they figured out mathematical logistics before NASA brought in IBM\u2019s room-sized computers. Surprisingly, those modern buildings still housed racially segregated bathrooms and water fountains. When I joined 23 other students in Miami as a 19-year-old, the only \u201cblack\u201d volunteer on the way to build playground equipment in poor schools in the Andes had to drink from \u201ccolored\u201d water dispensers and stay in a separate dormitory.<\/p>\n

I plan to see both \u201cFences\u201d and \u201cMoonlight\u201d by the time this piece is published, and I am pretty sure that I will experience the same regrets mixed with a slight sigh of relief that perhaps I would have had the strength to oppose these injustices if more mature. I so hope that the embracing love of all humanity with which I was raised did infuse my attitudes.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t miss these sources of the cracks in my rose-colored glasses for anything. We all need to acknowledge our individual responsibilities for the mistreatment of others. However, maybe it\u2019s time I see \u201cLa La Land\u201d in plain old glasses while, as always, I experience the joy of cinema.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS Lately, I feel awash in sentiment as I say goodbye to friends and the world of my youth. I miss those rather innocent days and my loving family. I don my rose-colored glasses more than I used to, as least when considering the gifts I was given as a child. Oddly, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-on-lifes-terms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}