What do Betty White and Harriet Tubman have in common? Both are being celebrated at the Federal level, one on a USPS postage stamp and the other on the twenty-dollar bill. Betty’s stamp is coming out soon. Harriet won’t be on the twenty-dollar bill until 2030.
That’s right, Andrew Jackson, you are going bye-bye. You were a good president while also being a bad president. You did more to damage Native Americans’ lives than any other president. You thought you were doing the right thing because you thought that your civilized ways were better than the ways of indigenous people. The country went along with you because they agreed with you.
It’s interesting that the first woman portrayed on U.S. money will be a Black woman, and the racist Jackson will be gone. You can say that for his time, Jackson was in line with most people in power’s way of thinking: European people good, indigenous people bad. We, as a nation, have done so much wrong to the Native Americans. Looking back, we broke every treaty the Native Americans signed. We came here, stole their land and stole their way of life.
I’ll never forget the evening a girlfriend and I showed up for a music event in a park, and when we put down our stuff next to a guy and woman, the guy said, “Hey, you’re a little too close to us and our stuff. And we were here first.” My girlfriend replied, “Well that didn’t work out too well for the Indians, did it?”
I was mildly horrified, but really, the guy wanted a buffer of grass around his stuff? Not at a popular music-in-the-park night. By the time the band played, all grass was covered up with chairs and blankets.
But I digress.
Back to Betty. She was a TV star for seven decades. She was married to the guy on Password and they never had children. Betty preferred men to women and had more guy friends than girlfriends. She was a hoot, and those cute dimples carried her far. When Alan Ludden passed away, Betty never remarried. He was the love of her life.
Betty was full of funny sayings. “Get at least 8 hours of beauty sleep. 9 if you’re ugly.”
Harriet: “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.“
Betty: “I may be a senior, but so what? I’m still hot.”
Harriet: “Quakers almost as good as colored. They call themselves friends and you can trust them every time.”
Betty: “My mother always used to say, ‘The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.’”
Harriet: “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”
Clearly, the two women have different places in our collective history. One was funny and a TV star. The other was the greatest woman in the Underground Railroad.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 