TPPM Watts: (28) Siege of persuasion

[pynchonoid]

I have no idea what the black maid was thinking, but
my parents assumed she did it on purpose to spite her
"boss lady".  The fact that she was able to afford to
buy a brand-new Mustang also came as a big surprise.
But I don't think anybody ever thought it strange that
a black maid would believe she could drive the same
car as her white employer -- if it's for sale and you
can afford it and want it, you buy it. I don't think
anybody at the local Ford dealership ever considered
not selling her a Mustang in order to protect the
sensibilities of another customer. (Which is not to
say that poor blacks, and other poor people in the US,
don't routinely find themselves ripped off when they
purchase big ticket items, often by being charged
higher interest rates for consumer loans.)


--- Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com> wrote:

> The Mustang story is interesting, and begs a
> question about the
> unintended subversiveness of mass advertising. Given
> the different kinds
> of social status involved, how does the black maid
> come to believe she
> can drive the same car as her white employer?
> 

> > --- Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com>
> wrote:
> > > Well, "white values are [also] displayed without
> > > let-up on [white]
> > > people's TV screens": is this why so many drive
> > > Mustangs?

 
pynchonoid:
> > Lafayette, Louisiana was a racially segregated
> city
> > when I spent most of my grammar school years there
> in
> > the late 1950s and early '60s.  An oil bidness
> friend
> > of my father's bought his wife a Mustang when they
> > first came on the market - first on their block -
> and
> > the wife made him trade it in when their black
> maid
> > appeared at work the following driving a brand new
> > Mustang, too. . Around this time,  it looked as if
> > they were going to be forced to integrate the
> schools.
> > We came to school one morning and the
> administration
> > had divided the playground in half with a chalk
> line -
> > boys on one side, girls on the other.  If push
> came to
> > shove, the good white folk of Lafayette were going
> to
> > protect their young girls from contact with the
> black
> > boys.  The playground division lasted a few weeks,
> > until the integration scare passed. Not too long
> after
> > that our family moved out west. Not quite 20 years
> > later I wound up in an inter-racial marriage that
> > continues to this day.
> > 
> > 
> > =====
> > http://pynchonoid.org
> > "everything connects"
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
> > http://vote.yahoo.com
> 
> 
> 

=====
http://pynchonoid.org
"everything connects"


	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail