Not excuses but the realities of the times and sociopolitical-economic conditions. Before you can begin to understand, you must first accept that all Blacks have not shared the same experience.
As the late father's sister, I'm guessing Aunt Vi is in her late 60s possibly 70 from the tribe, "Black Don't Crack." She's much older than Hollywood. She even regarded herself as a "cougar."
If they weren't held back because of the lack of opportunity for women during "those times" then neither should Vi have been.
"Should" is a very apt word choice since Louisiana had a caste system. Some Blacks were free. Others weren't freed until 1864.
Because of that, do you believe everyone is
prepared to meet opportunities in the universe when their start wasn't equal? Don't you agree that some have advantages over others?
Aunt Vi: Born in the late 1940s. Grew up in the '50s - early '60s PRE-Civil Rights still fighting Jim Crow rural south USA. Sharecroppers. Aunt Vi's family was from and continued on the plantation while her "contemporaries" were more upscale and higher educated.
Political/Economic: While some families, the free families strove to get their daughters a post secondary education, the illiterate families who were more recently
owned didn't/or couldn't realize it as a possibility until much later.
Did you not hear Aunt Vi tell the family how they were owned by the family who owns the land that surrounds them?
How her great grandparents were slaves? How her father was a sharecropper on that land? How her recently deceased brother finally obtained the land?
Cultural/Social attitudes: In those times, some families maintained that girls should be in the home, marry, have children -- while the unmarried care for the elders. In Black families, daughters did as they were told - unquestioningly obedient or exiled.
While owning a family diner would be an accomplishment, just like owning the farm, it's customary for a rural woman in the south, it's not a progressive achievement like becoming a journalist, an attorney, or a corporate executive.
And ironically, poor farming families couldn't afford to send their kids to school perpetuating "the cycle of poverty."
Some have such a low esteem they create reasons to hate everyone else.
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cocobuttr72-311-53542
8 years ago
I agree with only one thing in that Aunt Vi is likely older. However her two contemporaries blows your theory out of the water. Why did they make it and Vi did not?
My mother is Aunt Vi. From Georgia her great grandfather was a slave, who once free managed to buy 100 acres of land from his former slave master. My mother's father was a share cropper. She came from a very close knit family where several generations lived in same house or town. However, she put herself through college and graduate school. So yeah, I'm of the opinion Vi didn't get far because of her lack of initiative AND making her brother's family too much of her life. Did she raise Ralph Angel?
Personally, I can take her or leave her. She started off great now she's becoming sour because she's feeling "unwanted" by her nieces and nephew who are now adults and have their own lives.
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Top_Shelf
8 years ago
Props to your mom.
Was she married before or after she put herself through school? Was your grandfather literate? Did your mother go away to school or did she stay home and care for the extended family while studying?
Your great "great grandfather was a slave who, once free, managed to buy 100 acres of land from his former slave master." Yet your grandfather was a share cropper? Why didn't your grandfather work his grandfather's land?
Aunt Vi vs. Her Contemporaries
Georgia's and Louisiana's laws and culture were very different. Actually, Louisiana was unlike the rest of the states. In Louisiana, all Blacks were not equal. Some were never slaves: The Free vs. The Freed.
The Free were educated. Business owners. Traders. Some were slave owners themselves. Apparently writing Aunt Vi's family being "owned" in blue didn't increase the distinction and make evident the probability that her acquaintances in the diner weren't sharecroppers as children like Vi was.
Unlike your mother whose freed great grandfather was a land owner, it was Vi's brother who purchased the land and built them a home. Therefore, you could be right that Aunt Vi chose to stay with her brother to care for their elders and raise RA. Yet, that's not "a lack of initiative." That was throwing in her hat to help her family become First Generation Owners and send her nieces to college.
Some have such a low esteem they create reasons to hate everyone else.
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cocobuttr72-311-53542
8 years ago
Was she married before or after she put herself through school?
My mother was single as an undergraduate. She was married with kids when she earned her graduate degree. She had to drive four hours to Tallahassee once a week for the classes. No big thing for her because she had to walk 3 miles (each way) to attend a secondary colored school when they lived in Georgia.
Was your grandfather literate?
Yes. My great great grandfather was literate as well. His half-brother, who was the slave master's son, received a paid formal education courtesy of his older brother.
Did your mother go away to school or did she stay home and care for the extended family while studying?
She attended school away from home in North Carolina.
Your great "great grandfather was a slave who, once free, managed to buy 100 acres of land from his former slave master." Yet your grandfather was a share cropper? Why didn't your grandfather work his grandfather's land?
My great-great grandfather never cleared his land. He sold timber to white paper mills in Louisville, GA. He had eight children. The land passed down through the family and everyone received a share of the proceeds from the timber sales. And that's a ton of relatives so my grandfather sharecropped to make ends meet. My grandfather stopped being a sharecropper when my mother was a junior in high school. He moved the family north to NYC during the Great Migration. He worked as a doorman for 30+ years in Manhattan. He couldn't afford for my mother's tuition, so she worked in a jewelry factory during the summer and also on campus.
P.S. Our family no longer owns the land. A cousin, who was designated a steward, lost it in the 1980s for not paying the taxes:/
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Top_Shelf
8 years ago
P.S. Our family no longer owns the land. A cousin, who was designated a steward, lost it in the 1980s for not paying the taxes
You don't know how much I hate reading that.
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