Mayberry, Mayberry not.

With the recent passing of Andy Griffith there was a good amount of understandable nostalgia stirred up in many people. I didn't grow up watching The Andy Griffith Show (thankfully I am too young) but I have watched a few episodes and not only can I appreciate it, I also enjoy it. It really is what you would call, "Good, clean fun." What it isn't, however, is a representation of how America used to be.

I have been a little disturbed to witness a lot of false memories of American history. People saying such things as, "Things were better back then", "Oh, the good old days", "I wish we could go back to that." The problem is that, "that", never existed, and that the life and community demonstrated was not one that was available to all.

The show ran from 1960 - 1968. This means that it started before the Civil Rights act was signed into law and ended just three days before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. This period of American history was definitive as well as horrific. We are looking at a time when discrimination is still legal, where children are being blown up at church, where men and women can be attacked and killed and little is done because of their race. Mayberry managed to avoid all of this.

Mayberry did not have a large African-American community. You can often see African-Americans in the background, but they are few and far between. This is of course as much to do with restrictions on black actors and the reality that there were and still are many towns that are predominantly white, also that the target audience was probably white. The show was definitely of its time and cannot be blamed for that. But to suggest in the 21st century that we believe that it was real or that we think that period of history was one worth going back to demonstrates a great deal of historical blindness.

"Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions."

Ecclesiastes 7:10

It is without doubt that crime rates are much higher today than they were back then, but we have to consider that there are over 100 million more people and that not only are more crimes reported today but more things are considered crimes, especially when it comes to domestic and racial violence.

The serenity of Mayberry was not representative of what was happening across America. There was no sit in at the local diner, no episode dealing with integration at Opie's school, no freedom riders coming through town, and no church burnings. It is a lovely history that manages to avoid the uglier side of reality, and perhaps that is what people who fancy this as real are yearning for. But we cannot pretend reality away.

It is sad that Andy Griffith has passed away, but he seemed to have lived a pretty good and long life. What I hope we do see pass away is this false notion of what history was.