I admit I was getting a bit upset, as I usually do when folks wax nostalgic over the "good old days," until I saw Megan's post (to which I said "thank you, thank you, thank you!!!")
I'll say this again later, but I don't blame anyone for believing the "old days" to be fundamentally better than today. I'm going to disagree, yes, but I don't blame anyone for their perspectives (I'm not on anyone's case here--I'm upset at the content of the comments, not the individuals who made them.) Let me explain what I mean:
To say that "everything seemed perfect then" (Fifth Dynasty) is to exhibit a profound amnesia about the violent history of the United States against people of color. Sure, the "old days" were a time in which you could "relax" (Patback)--but only if you were white (and a white man in particular.)
Again, I'm not blaming anyone here. Why? Because I believe the blame lies squarely with our school education. I mean, how do you tell children, especially young ones, that Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote "All men are created equal," owned nearly 200 black slaves at the same time? We end up becoming profoundly unaware of this country's history--and this is what leads us to believe that the "old days" were necessarily better. We're given a watered-down version of US history that insulates us from some of the not-so-admirable actions white people have taken against people of color in the name of freedom and democracy--such as removing Native Americans from their land, killing off 90% of them through (mainly) disease and acts of violence, and sticking the rest on reservations, effectively violating every treaty the (white) US government made with them. From a Native American point of view, the old days are hardly "perfect."
One can say that people "showed more respect and there was more love and care" in the old days, but it was only white people doing that--to each other, not to black people. Prior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, white kids--especially in the South, but not just there--were socialized to consider blacks inferior. They wouldn't be allowed to play with black kids and were taught to disrespect them. That was the culture of the time.
