I am a fan of older literature, much of it from the Victorian period through to the "pulp" era of the 1920s and 1930s. One issue that reading a lot of this material presents is that the attitudes and mores are often at loggerheads with those of today. Ideas that would instantly raise concerns about racism or sexism if a writer used them today abound even in the more progressive writers of the time.

My sons (14 years old) are big on computer games. There are so many of theose games out there. And you know what? Almost all of them are about war and killing.

Then I check out the surviving comic books, often now coming out in book format. Just finished one called Commandos. It's second world war. the Japanese are yellow-bellies, little brown men, cowards, racially inferior.

Like most of us, I guess, I grew up in a world in which we can readily see evil, and identify pure evil as a cause of events.

Specifically, I grew up to see Hitler and Stalin and Mao as evil, and the terrible destruction of life that arose from them as something caused by their evil. I still think they're evil. But the second part of that sentence may be simplistic.

It may be that Hitler and Stalin and Mao were the norms for our new world - not exceptions, but terrible examples of a new normalcy.

I have never been proud to be a Native American. Another thread on this forum triggered this realization. I have pale skin compared to my brothers & sisters. My mother is full Plains Cree and my dad is part German and Cherokee. At a young age I learned to hate myself and everything my nationality represented. I was well on my way to being assimilated, having no knowledge of my mother tongue, not having an Indian name as a child and complete ignorance of my traditions as a Cree.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and am looking for a few other ideas about this whole scenario.

The recent Kingston canal murders of four women of colour are still under investigation, but formal charges have been laid against the father, mother, and brother of three of the victims (with the fourth suspected of being a first wife of the father).

A younger poster said that she did not  know who were the Bunkers.In my opinion, this show changed television for ever. It is the first time that racism, sexism and all the other biases were revealed in a prime time show.

It is said that if an episode of All In the Family were put in a time capsule, it would capitulate the way that we were thinking and acting in the 60's and 70's. We see ourselves in the characters and I think change in our ideologies started with this show.

What do you think?