Things have changed. Interracial couples are tolerated. More jobs are open to blacks, albeit because of anti-discrimination laws and because firms want minority customers. Richardson feels he now gets as much respect as anyone. Yet he remains attuned to subtle prejudice, and says he brushes it off when he finds it.
Life is too short to get bent out of shape.
He can't imagine why. John Richardson takes time out from packing to play a video game with his son, John Jr. Richardson, who is from Maine, moved his family south because he felt uncomfortable here. He finally decided to leave when he said his son was racially harassed. Behind that statement is resentment that reaches back as far as his days at West Elementary School, where Richardson was painfully aware that he was black in a nearly all-white community. When I was a kid in first or second grade, we were talking about slavery in school and the teacher made a reference that the slaves were colored people like John, and said, John, why don't you stand up on a chair for us . . .