Black & White -- The Good Old Days?

There is a popular piece making its way around the Internet. My friend, Raymond Anderson, wrote a rebuttal to this piece and gave me permission to publish it here. Many thanks, Raymond.

Black and White

(Under age 40?

You won't understand.)

You could hardly see for all the snow

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,

"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

Depending on the channel you tuned,

You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys,

Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys,

Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train,

Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane.

Father Knows Best, Patty Duke,

Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too,

Donna Reed on Thursday night! --

Life looked better in black and white.

I wanna go back to black and white.

Everything always turned out right.

Simple people, simple lives...

Good guys always won the fights.

Now nothing is the way it seems,

In living color on the TV screen.

Too many murders, too many fights,

I wanna go back to black and white.

In God they trusted; alone in bed, they slept.

A promise made was a promise kept.

They never cussed or broke their vows.

They'd never make the network now.

But if I could, I'd rather be

In a TV town in '53.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I'd trade all the channels on the satellite

If I could just turn back the clock tonight

To when everybody knew wrong from right.

Life was better in black and white!

Anonymous

Black and White

(Don't know history?

You won't understand.)

I miss black-and-white times of 1950-some.

TV-Land is my friend, though some think it's dumb.

The innocent world that I knew in my youth —

What's wrong with the values I swallowed as truth?

Everyone had two parents and a family car;

Only small problems and help never far.

A good little black-and-white Pleasantville town

And old fashioned values gave our country renoun.

No Black or Jew was in leadership shown.

Orientals exotic, gay men were unknown.

Fair or not, Indians lost every fight;

You could count on the good guys to always be white.

"The Untouchables" taught us of drink to beware,

So instead we took smoking for our lungs and the air.

The times were so simple, the lives were so clean

When poor colored folk had their separate latrine.

We rode in the front

And they in the back.

And they had their own schools —

Don't blame us for their lack.

"Under God" was born of the Communist scare.

"One nation indivisible" apart did it tear.

McCarthy ruled through fear and brought on much woe

When a life was destroyed by all-American Joe.

Oh, we still had drug use, adultery, and VD,

But you never saw any on network TV.

We kept them invisible so good folks wouldn't mingle

With prostitutes, lesbians, and moms who were single.

Black and white times once again lie ahead.

"Either for or against", White House Occupant said.

“Hand over your freedom, we'll give safety for rights.

Then we'll know if you're part of the blacks or the whites.”

To return to the simple times we knew before,

Close your eyes to the world, facts of life just ignore.

There's no global warming, no gay marriage too.

The only people who matter are like me and like you.

Raymond T. Anderson