Before 1965, black people were not allowed to vote. Democrats and Republicans competed for the votes of white people. White people said, "All this bipartisanship is great!"
Before 1965, black people didn't go to white college. Black college graduates came from Howard, Morehouse, Spellman and other black universities. White people wrote a check for $10 to the UNCF and said, "I agree, a mind is a terrible thing to waste!"
Before the Internet age, only white people worked for newspapers and behind the cameras of TV news. Sometimes they put black people in front of the camera... like when one million of them gathered in one place, or when the white police told the reporters, in advance, that savage beatings (always good for ratings) were on the agenda at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. White people said, "Look at the good done by the First Amendment!"
In 2015...
In 2015, thanks to the voting power of black and brown people we have a black president. A black grandma named Mrs. Robinson lives in the White House and never has to empty an ashtray or clean a toilet.
In 2015, thanks to Thurgood Marshall and students living up to expectations that they be better than their rich white peers, there are now dozens of black and brown students at John C. Calhoun residential college, Yale.
Thanks to the Internet, the New York Times, winner of 117 Pulitzer Prizes, including exactly one (1) for the writing of a black person, has noticed the police officers in the a United States murder, on average, one unarmed black man a month.
What do white people say now?
"Whaaaaaaaa! That's not fair! Why do we have to be politically correct ?"
“Political correctness” only acquired a name when, relatively recently in American history, the idea of treating others respectfully was finally extended to include how white people treat black people, how men treat women, and so on. Prior to that, the idea that some people were owed deferentially considerate treatment—even in its most extreme, vicious incarnations—didn’t need a special term. It was just the way things were. If black people offended white people—however or whatever such “offense” was determined to be—black people paid dearly. In fact, they still do.
