Extra-Special Bonus QOTD 0
Vincent Price:
Here in America, racial and religious hatred does exist, sustained by the political adventurers and plain crackpots who are willing scrap the democratic way of life to attain their own ends. Prejudice in America is centered in their addled philosophy.
But unless we guard ourselves and our families, it can find its way into our into our own lives. Then the poison would do its work, undermining America’s unity, sabotaging our prestige abroad, and wrecking our ideal of individual freedom. In your family life, you can effectively carry on a campaign against prejudice.
Our youngsters grow up with a pride in their country. Teach them that part of that pride is our tradition of accepting or rejecting people on their individual worth, not on the basis of race or religion or color. Remember, freedom and prejudice can’t exist side by side. If you choose freedom, fight prejudice.
Vincent Price recorded those words as the closing remarks for a radio show that aired over seven decades ago (they were aired multiple times). Note that these shows aired shortly after the Dixiecrat Party fielded a segregationist candidate to oppose Harry Truman in the presidential election of 1948. I challenge anyone to prove Price wrong.
Of course, his remarks on “our tradition of accepting people on their individual worth” gloss over the dark side of America’s history, but they also hold aloft the best of what some refer to as “the American ideal.” And his comments about “political adventurers . . . who are willing scrap the democratic way of life” may be truer now than when he said them.
