I agree with Table 5, I think this is very much an indication of the when the people grew up, changing your mind isn't as easy as when you are young, and the amount of change old people have to deal with is staggering.
Quote:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the 2 races living together on terms of social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion that I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position that the Negro should be denied everything.
". . . Notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence-the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."
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Anyone guess who said the above quote?
If it was uttered by a politician today it would be total suicide, political and possibly physical. Yet Lincoln said that.
I don't think it's right for people to be racist (we get a lot of scrutiny at border crossings with my spanish wife), but I do think we have to give some consideration to when they grew up, where and when my grandparents grew up racism was the norm so I don't expect them to somehow have values that are vastly different from what they were taught or what they grew up and lived in. EDIT: That said my grandma doesn't have any problem with my spanish wife, if she was black though I think there'd be an issue.