George Jefferson Demands $20 From Honky Bunker

I recently watched a 35 year old episode of All In The Family. I’m up on pop culture as long as I have  35 years to catch up.

In the episode I saw, Archie Bunker unknowingly passed a counterfeit $20 bill to George Jefferson. Archie was picking up dry cleaning from George at Jefferson Cleaners

(Above you can watch the first segment of the show. Here is the link to next segment.  And here is the link to the final segment.)

When he saw that the $20 was no good,  George stormed over to Archie’s house, next door to his, and demanded $20 in real currency.

George told Archie that if he did not give him the money that Archie would “be on the list of the ten most sorry honkies.” 

Well—you can just imagine the trouble from that point on.

Life is more complicated than in 1974. In terms of race, America is, in some respects at least, better than it was in 1974.  

While there is little to be said for what race relations were in the era of fights over busing and not long after years of urban rioting, the black and white world of Archie Bunker and George Jefferson did make for better television than much of what is on today. 

As someone who grew up watching All In The Family, I sometimes have to remind myself that race relations are  more nuanced today than in the past.  I’ve never quite gotten the sounds Archie and George yelling at each other out of my mind.

One thing I’m reasonbly certain of–A black President named Barack Obama serving at the same time that much of black America still lives in borderline genocidal conditions of urban (and rural) poverty and despair, would not have been a future people would have imagined 35 years ago.