Nostalgia and racism: a false equivalency

I miss the America I grew up in, and that’s no secret to anyone who’s read my works. I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom, and I’ve written extensively about the United States in the late 20th century.

I’ve penned books about pop metal music in the 1980s; highways in California and across the nation; a pioneering sports icon and forgotten sports leagues; and (forthcoming) department stores and shopping malls.

I miss a lot of things about that era. I miss the music I grew up with back when Casey Kasem hosted American Top 40 and MTV played actual music videos. I miss the roadside diners like Howard Johnson’s and attractions like Lion Country Safari that closed up shop. I enjoy (and benefit from) the convenience of Amazon, but I miss exploring all the stores at malls that are often two-thirds empty these days, converted to “mixed uses,” or outright closed.

I miss bowling alleys and drive-in movie theaters. I miss newspapers that covered local government meetings and sent reporters to every high school basketball game. I miss nightly news broadcasts that everyone watched and trusted. I miss neon lights and nickel comic books and 7-Eleven’s baseball trading cups.

I miss sports that were less corporate and more about competition — before the Russians stole the 1972 men’s basketball gold medal and started the U.S. talking about including NBA players in the Olympics. Before terms like “trade exception” “luxury tax” and “sign-and-trade” became as much a part of the conversation as “free throw” and “slam dunk.”

But somehow, in the minds of some, all that’s become conflated with racism, segregation, and a particular brand of Christian hegemony.

In fact, I can hear objections to my wistful longing for elements of this simpler time:

“Oh, you miss white culture. You miss the segregated suburbs Donald Trump thinks still exist.”

Actually, no. I live in an integrated suburb today, and I like it just as much as I enjoyed living in the whiter suburbs of my childhood. I cringe whenever I pass a Confederate flag on the highway, and I mourn when innocent people are killed in police custody.

People are people, regardless of their skin color, and cultural exchanges make all our lives richer. In fact, it’s nonsensical to think that diverse communities didn’t contribute to the America I remember. Here’s the thing, though: They didn’t get paid. Or recognized. Or respected. And that’s the problem.

We wouldn’t have had the British Invasion, or rock ’n’ roll in general, without Black American blues. We wouldn’t have had Elvis or the Beatles without Robert Johnson or Leadbelly. We wouldn’t have had the Go-Go’s without the Supremes, or the Supremes without Bessie Smith. None of that so-called “white culture” would have even existed without the Black pioneers who created it.

But white record producers cheated them out of their fair share of the publishing rights, and white performers siphoned millions away from them by covering their songs.

In sports, can you imagine the ’50s without Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron? The ’60s without Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell? The ’60s and ’70s without Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier? The ’80s without Magic and Michael? I can’t. These athletes didn’t just thrive in their eras, they defined them for sports fans across the country.

And Curt Flood, the St. Louis Cardinals centerfielder, ushered in the era of free agency when he challenged baseball’s reserve clause.

Would things seem any less nostalgic now if there had been coaches, general managers, or team owners of color? No, they wouldn’t. The memories would be even richer.

I write this a day after Organized Baseball finally decided to “recognize” the Negro Leagues as Major Leagues. It was the right thing to do, no question. But that recognition is about as relevant as someone recognizing a redwood tree as tall. It is what it is, regardless of who says so.

And so it is for the things I remember fondly from my childhood. What would it have meant to be a Lakers fan without Kareem, Magic and Worthy? It’s impossible to say, but it wouldn’t have been what it was. Can you imagine the Lakers, minus those three players, going up against a Celtics team led by Bird and McHale? It would have been a massacre. And it sure as heck wouldn’t have been Showtime.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so nostalgic for those 1980s shopping malls, which in some sense represented the crowning achievement of “white flight” to the suburbs. But I do miss them. I just wish they hadn’t been born from the politics of exclusion: The teenage version of me was oblivious to it; the mature me finds it repulsive.

To celebrate “white America” as though it’s somehow separate from — and not dependent upon — a diversity of creative forces and cultural influences is naïve and simply false. It’s like the white supremacist who takes a DNA test and learns he has African ancestors, or the gay-bashing parent who finds out his daughter’s a lesbian.

The South was built on Black labor, the Western railroads on Chinese workers, and the California lettuce fields on the sweat of undocumented immigrants. It wouldn’t have been the same without them. And it wouldn’t have been the same without white exploitation, either: It would have been better, more human, more right.

Those waving the banner of segregation and racial “purity” are, ironically, denying the very culture they’re trying to preserve. Despite the best efforts of these bigots to exclude them, racial, ethnic, and other minorities have shaped the American experience in profound and singular ways. Imagine if we in the majority had let them contribute more, instead of kneeling on their necks and ripping the cash from their wallets.

Some bigots are nostalgic for segregated schools, all-white soda fountains, and redlining. I’m nostalgic for a lot of other things from the 20th century, but that? No way in hell.

I miss Woolworth, but I don’t miss segregated lunch counters.

I miss the NFL in the ’70s, but I don’t miss the Washington Football Team’s old name.

I miss the days when players played their entire careers for a single team, but I don’t miss the exploitive reserve clause the forced them to stay there.

I miss the old suburban shopping malls, but I prefer the new, diverse suburbia.

I miss the days when “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” were genuine well wishes, not ammunition in some imaginary war.

I’ll keep my memories of rock music, classic sports, and roadside attractions. And I’ll imagine how much better still those memories would be if those in the majority would have welcomed the contributions of those who weren’t, rather than stealing and exploiting them for our own selfish goals.

Now, that’s something to get wistful about.

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Featured photo: 1916 St. Louis Negro League team.