Glen:  How right you are. Jane Steele

-----Original Message-----
>From: glenn <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Oct 16, 2007 11:30 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] New Quaker Oats ad: "Ticket out of Virginia"
>
>Come on now. The operative phrase in the original post was "...an
>attractive, older African-American couple..." I am only 51 years old and was
>involved in the second year of court ordered busing in 1968 as a junior high
>student at Harry A. Hunt in Portsmouth VA. And, I do not consider my self an
>older African American. In addition, I am old enough to remember places in
>Portsmouth and Norfolk where we could go, especially Ocean View Beach, the
>Commodore Theatre to name two. 
>
>And racial discrimination is not the only reason to leave Virginia. There
>are some fine persons of all types of ethnic backgrounds in Virginia. I left
>not because of racism. I left in 1979 because the better engineering jobs
>outside of the military industrial complex were not in Virginia.
>
>As for racism, the Commonwealth of Virginia was not and is not the worst. I
>have seem far worst in the Deep South but nothing compared to the covert
>racism practiced here in the State of California. Most don't realize that
>until the mid 1950's in California it was state law that Asians could not
>legally attend school with either Caucasians nor African Americans. And
>Latinos were not considered sanitary.
>
>So in the final analysis, I would leave the Quaker Oats commercial alone.
>There are plenty of reasons to leave any place. VIRGINIA IS truly FOR
>LOVERS; but, economic concerns can cause one to seek a ticket out.
>
>Glenn Gregory, Graduate
>Old Dominion University, BSCE, 1979
>Woodrow Wilson High School, Portsmouth VA, 1974
>Publicity Manager, Student Government Association, WWHS, 1973-1974


Lillian Jane Steele