The Golden Girls were right

I got some unexpected context for an episode of The Golden Girls yesterday.

We did not watch it regularly growing up, but have come to enjoy it via syndicated reruns. We have gotten into some of our favorite shows that way.

This episode was "Dorothy's New Friend", Season 3, episode 15, first airing January 16th, 1988.

(As this was the day before my 16th birthday, I remember quite clearly that I was at a dance that was my first official date, and boring enough to make me wish I had waited until I was officially 16 for that first date. But I definitely didn't watch TV that night.)

In the episode, Dorothy makes friends with a writer played by Bonnie Bartlett, whom you may remember as the Widow Snider who married Mr. Edwards on Little House on the Prairie, but eventually left him over his alcoholism after their oldest adopted son's murder drove him back into the bottle. I guess we should have realized she was going to be unreliable.

Barbara Thorndyke gives Dorothy sparkling conversation and entry into literary circles, but is a snob who keeps subtly insulting Blanche and Rose. The last straw is when Dorothy discovers that the club they were going to go to is restricted, so Sophia's date would not be allowed in: Murray Guttman is Jewish.

I don't know how long ago it was that we first saw the episode, but I think I felt like that conflict made Barbara kind of cartoonishly bad. Restricted country clubs were from the '60s. Golden Girls was the '80s. Anyone who was still doing that had to have some problems.

Well, yes, I still think that, but those problems were more common than I thought.

I just finished A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness and a Trove of Letters Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression by Ted Gup. Gup's grandfather Sam Stone had set up a bank account under an assumed name and put an ad in the paper offering to send help to those who needed it. He initially planned to send 75 people $10 each, but there were so many applicants that he halved it to $5 for 150 people. The title oversells it a little.

Stone's family were Jews from Romania who had to flee the country when antisemitic persecution increased. He spent time in Pittsburgh, then Canton, Ohio where the gift-giving took place, eventually having enough money to winter in Florida.

That was in the '50s, so perhaps it not so surprising that he ended up next to a restricted apartment building. I guess it's not quite the same as a red-lined neighborhood - Jews can be on the street, just not in this building - but okay, that is before the main thrust of the Civil Rights Movement, so maybe we should expect things to be bad.

Except one of those building residents married the author's mother, obtaining an exemption for her to live in the building. Sign that they weren't really that committed to racism? Or maybe not, because his country club, La Gorce, did not end its restrictions until 1990.

La Gorce is in Miami Beach. A restricted country club in Miami in 1988 really wasn't that far-fetched.

When Dorothy expresses her disbelief, Barbara says it's the club's policy, not hers. Besides, they serve a great breakfast and the parking is free.

It does sound less cartoonish now, but it also sounds more damning. How could you ever think that free parking is a good reason to overlook racism?

I view the episode differently now; as braver, and more necessary. It was made at a time when pressure needed to be applied, and was getting close to paying off. I never doubted the need for the "Fore" episode of Designing Women, when Anthony is recruited into the country club to try and avoid sanctions. I knew about that kind of racism, but there's always more.

To be fair, my family has never been likely to join a country club. Also, this area has been so opposite of integrated that it would be easy to not even know if there were restrictions. All through my school years I only knew three Jewish families, and I never knew of them being excluded. I probably wouldn't. My naivete lasted a while.

Still, sometimes you find things out, and then you need to take a stand. Beyond that, I have reached a point where I believe I need to work harder to find things out. There are a lot of things that might not affect me yet. That doesn't mean that they don't matter.

One irritating thing in the book was the author expressing some chagrin that some of his older relatives still feared antisemitism sweeping the country. The book was published in 2010. Do those relatives seem to have more of a point now?

I think I know what to write about tomorrow.