Physician, heal thyself

***The staff of the Jim Crow Museum receives dozens of letters and emails. Some of these communiques offer insight into race relations -- historically and in the present. While some are hateful, we have decided to share some of these letters and emails with our Internet visitors.***

I read your page on Sapphire Stevens - what racist blather!

Why is it that Audrey Meadows or Leah Remini can play an angry, nagging, WHITE woman, yet the great Ernestine Wade doing likewise is somehow "demeaning"? or that Carrol O'Connor is endearing butchering the english language, whereas Tim Moore is to be held to a different standard?

Sapphire and George are two of the great comic characters of all time. They could be black, white, green, it doesn't matter. So far as I know, you are the only people I've ever heard call him "ignorant" or call either of them "black stereotypes".

Dishonest, yes, mischievous, yes, but IGNORANT?! Have you ever SEEN the show?!

Regards, Julie

P.S. If you want to be OFFENDED at something, how about the fact that the honeymooners STOLE A&A's (Amos 'n' Andy) ACT?!

Scheming, shiftless husband with straight-laced, nagging, wife is a common trope nowadays, but back then it was pretty much limited to the Stevens and the Kramdens.

It is sad that Tim Moore's brilliance is utterly lost in the hagiography of Jackie Gleason. Or that museums like your own somehow find that appropriate for our people!

Cheers

-- April 8, 2013