The Banker

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We watched a movie called ‘The Banker’ with Samuel L Jackson and Nia Long and a great cast…

…telling the based-on a true story about black men trying to buy real estate and banks in Texas in the 1960’s.

It’s truly horrifying what black people faced in this country back when, some believe, everything was great here in America.

In fact, I get a pit in my stomach when I watch a historical recounting of those horrid days.

We were watching a rerun of ‘Modern Family’ the other night when Jay and Gloria had a conversation about America in the good old days.

“Life was pretty great back then,” Jay said.

“Unless you were black or Hispanic or gay or a woman,” Gloria said.

“Yeah, well, I was twenty-two and white,” Jay responds. “It was hard to have a bad day.”

And that’s the rub of what has been going on lately…

…there is a camp of people who want to take the nation back to those days.

Towards the end of the film, one of the lead actors makes the point that ‘We the People’ doesn’t have qualifiers for color of skin or sex or even sexual preferences.

The next ten years are going to be intense as the battle continues.

I know a lot of people who don’t believe that they’re racists.

The comedian Patrice O’Neal - who was awesome - said:

“No one thinks they’re racist,” he said. “But there was, and is, a whole lot of racism going on.”

It’s hard to believe that people back in those days didn’t know that they were employing racist tactics…

…I thought we were on the verge of changing…

…we were!

And now we are on the verge of changing back.

Anywhoha…

…good movie.

I hope it makes you uncomfortable.

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