Milt Reynolds: Thinking Out Loud

Scientifically Disappointed I work for a laboratory. In my mind, a laboratory is best described as the color white. I always imagine a laboratory to have white countertops, white walls, white cabinets, white floors, white computers, white ball point pens. No, maybe not the pens...I imagine the pens being black. Black pens with a chrome retractor and a chrome clip which allows it to be placed securely in the pocket of a white lab coat. If you look closely at the chrome clip you can see a reflected image of a white laboratory. I remember being so excited when my second-grade elementary school teacher announced to us second-grade school children that the lavoratory was just down the hallway from our classroom. A lavoratory! That's the same as laboratory, just pronounced differently, right? No. I sadly learned the truth five minutes later as we all trooped down the hallway to experience the lavoratory. "Lavoratory" was a fancy word for "bathroom" , which i

Local Color Watch the full episode . See more OPB Specials. Not sure where I've been the last 53 years...a lot of this is new to me. Growing up white in small town eastern Oregon, I was insulated from racial conflict. I could easily imagine legal segregation and popular discrimination and violent hate happening far, far away, but not at all in my home state of Oregon. This video is about ten years old now, but this is the first I've heard of it. I regret my ingnorance. I regret being ignorant of the dark truth of Oregon's social and political heritage. But, better late than never. One of the statements captured in the video still echoes in my mind: "For life to get better for the blacks in Oregon, whites had to change." For me, experiencing this video is a part of that change.